The Raven and the Cross

by C. R. May

  Erik snorted when he heard the request, nodding his acceptance before turning to face the crowd. His own warriors were kneeling in a crescent around him, the wonder and pride of it shining in their eyes, and beyond them the good folk of Sheptun looked on in awestruck silence. The priest spoke sidelong as the cross was carried forward, and Erik felt a thrill as he gave a nod and repeated the words:

  ‘Fæder ure,

  þu þe eart on heofonum-’

  Erik shot Gamli a grin. ‘All set for the blót?’

  His son nodded. ‘Yes father, Sturla and Kolbein unearthed a fine white stallion on a local steading. He is already being led to the grove to await the sacrifice.’

  Erik narrowed his eyes. ‘Completely white?’

  Gamli pulled a lopsided grin. ‘Well…mostly.’

  ‘And you paid a fair price for this mostly white bone bag?’

  Gamli clutched at his chest and feigned distress, drawing a rumble of laughter from the king and those within earshot, ‘Of course father! Unclipped coins of the purest silver, bearing the name of the very latest in a long list of tyrants to rule in these parts.’

  Erik gave a curt nod as the laughter faded. ‘Good, these are our people now. We are neither thieves nor wolf heads.’

  The heathen had saddled their horses while he had been away at Sheptun church, and Erik cast a look of pride over a meadow filled by the army of Erik Haraldsson as Sturla led his lord’s horse across. Erik mounted, taking up his gold inlaid spear from his banner man and raising it to the dying light. The army roared his name as the blade flashed, and a heartbeat later the last echoes were drowned out by the rumble of hundreds of men hauling themselves into the saddle. A gap had opened up where the land fell away down to the River Aire, and Erik put back his heels, spear held high as the cantering horse sent huge clods of the rain soaked earth spinning through the air. The warriors roared again as folk came down from the settlement to cheer their army to victory, and Erik threw back his head to laugh with joy as the thought came upon him that he had never felt more alive. Erik’s huskarls dropped down the bank to swarm in his wake, and Erik slowed his horse to a trot as the road was gained and the horsemen became a horde to shake the riverside with a sound like rolling thunder. Thorstein came up, and Erik saw his own exhilaration reflected there as he called across. ‘Which way are we going?’ The pair shared a laugh, and they slowed the horses to a walk as Thorstein replied. ‘The grove is near to the place where we awaited Arinbjorn’s report, the first night we got here. A few of the lads have gone on ahead with the sacrifice, they will wait at the road to guide us.’

  The shadows were lengthening quickly by the time the men appeared on the path ahead, and Erik ordered the torches lit as they began to dismount. Soon the light of the sun had been replaced by the flicker and flare of hundreds of fiery brands, and the woodland came alive as the monstrous forms of a shadow army grew and receded from trunk to trunk as they went. Pinpricks of light soon became a circle of flame as Erik reached the ancient grove, and Erik thought to reward Sturla Godi as he saw the perfection of the place. A firkin of earl Orm’s ale had been enough for the Romsdaler to prise the half-forgotten location of Sheptun’s heathen shrine from an old woodsman, and looking across Erik saw that Gamli’s description of the sacrificial beast had been sound. A fine stallion, its muscular frame rippling like windblown silk in the light of the torches stood tethered to an ash tree of great age, and Erik approached the animal as the rest of the army spilled out from the woodland path to fill the clearing.

  Erik glanced upward at the bowl of the sky as the last of the army made the glade. The clouds which had swollen the rivers had moved on several days before and the sky was darkening quickly. Soon the stars would be turning, but Thorstein’s touch on his sleeve told him that the last of the warriors had arrived and he gave the men holding the ropes the nod. With grunts of effort the head of the sacrifice was hauled up against the bole of the tree, and as the forelegs came clear of the ground Erik closed in and spoke the dedication:

  ‘Óðinn, Allfather,

  you hung from the ash

  wounded with a spear-’

  Erik raised his own spear as he spoke, the blade flaming as it reflected the light of the torches before he stabbed it home. The horse let out an unearthly screech as Erik worked the shaft to pulp its great heart, and blood gushed to blacken the ground as he tore it free, completed the dedication and asked the god for victory in the fight to come.

  Men rushed in like hounds at the kill to fill pots and bowls as the blood pulsed from the wound, and at the centre of it all a great cauldron had been manhandled into the clearing ready to boil the gobbets of flesh.

  Erik moved from man to man, dipping ash twigs to spatter each devotee with sacrificial blood as the last of Orm’s ale was tapped and mixed with it, and his heartbeat quickened as a knot of warriors toasted him with the resulting victory ale and moved away to rejoin their friends. His hand and forearm were slick where the spear had been forced in deep, and he grasped the opportunity to spend time alone with his thoughts and reflect on the events of the day as men drank and caroused. It was the same hand which had taken up the Holy Writ, the same which had made the sign of the cross over the faithful in Sheptun at the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer. He was, Erik realised as the first trencher of steaming horseflesh was carried across to him, the embodiment of the kingdom itself; a heady brew of Angle, Norse and Dane, of Christ and Óðinn, Þórr and Frey.

  As the men in the grove drained their cups, crowed their lineage and pledged great deeds to come, Erik supped and wished the night away.

  27

  KENTISHMEN

  Erik shifted in the saddle and looked out across the vale. The sun was warm on his face, and he touched at his cheek again in irritation. ‘This is making me all tacky again,’ he said as he wiped the blood from his fingertips on the leg of his trews. He moved the hand up and wrinkled his nose in distaste; ‘and smelly.’

  Harald tutted, drawing looks of amusement from his brothers. ‘My closest kinsmen; savages to a man!’

  Erik frowned as he saw Sigurd nudge Guttorm. Too far down the pecking order to worry overmuch about succeeding to their father’s kingdoms, Erik and Gunnhild’s younger sons were about as close as brothers could be. ‘Is that a term of endearment, Harald?’ Sigurd asked with a feigned air of innocence.

  ‘A savage is someone bestial, brutish and barbaric. It is from the latin, it means “of the woods.”’

  ‘Well, that is good,’ Sigurd replied happily, ‘because we were in the woods when we did it. You should have come along with us Harald; as ever you look the odd one out.’

  Erik gave a weary sigh as his pups yapped and fought. They had been sat in their saddles for what felt like an age as they waited for the enemy riders to appear on the road below them, but a quick glance at the elevation of the sun told him that it could only have been maybe three hours at most. Despite the delay, ferocity not humour was needed on a day like today, and he was about to put an end to the bickering when Sigurd spoke again. ‘And how about father? He led a Christian church service only last evening. Surely he cannot be “bestial, brutish and barbaric?”’

  Harald glanced across, and Erik finally found a degree of humour in the moment as a look passed between them. They had had their talk following the awkward exchange the morning the English army had arrived at Ceasterford at the start of summer. Harald now understood when and how to use his learning, and they had both agreed that his brothers were fair game. ‘I am afraid that he too looks diabolical brother,’ Harald replied with a twinkle in his eye.

  Erik’s own eyes went wide, the king asking a question as the younger Erikssons sniggered: ‘more latin?’

  ‘Greek, father, it means devilish.’

  Erik’s eyes lit up. ‘So we resemble demons from the deep woods? This is Óðinn work,’ he said as hands went to god charms, ‘the Allfather accepted our sacrifice and walked among us at the blót. Who else would put the idea into Gaml
i’s head that we smear our faces with sacrificial blood?’

  The sun shone from a cobalt sky; half a mile to the east the grey slash of the Roman Rigg shimmered in the heat of a perfect day. Erik waved his hands before his face as the conversation trailed away and the cloud of flies attracted by the horse blood attacked again. He was beginning to lose patience whether it was Óðinn inspired or not; perhaps he would wash the blood off? He had always seemed diabolical to his enemies without.

  The king glanced across at Gamli as he thought. The eldest Eriksson was in the saddle, immobile and unhearing as the bickering swirled around him; fixing a predatory stare on the distant point where the Roman road exited the tree cover. Erik allowed himself a smile of pride as he turned back. Gamli may not possess the charm and guile of his brother Harald, but his qualities were no less useful: he was battle-hard; feral; a killer of men.

  ‘There it is!’

  Gamli’s cry drove all other thoughts away, and Erik’s attention switched back to the road. The scouts were making the signal for enemy in sight as they hauled the heads of their horses around to the west, urging their mounts into a gallop as they flew towards the tree line. Skilled in using any fold or outcrop as a means of cover the horsemen soon passed behind a spur of land and disappeared from view, and Erik gave his orders as his eyes remained fixed on the road. ‘Get back to your men lads, and be ready to ride.’

  Helgrim’s horse whinnied, tossing its head as it picked up the change in mood, and the huskarl leaned forward to run a sturdy hand the length of its neck as Erik and his guards fixed their gaze on the distant roadway. Down in the vale the return to tranquility lasted only a few more moments before the steady clop of hooves on stone setts carried to them on the hill top.

  ‘So we are to fight the men of the White Horse,’ Thorstein said as the leading riders hove into view: ‘Kentishmen.’

  Erik looked on in satisfaction. Weeks had passed since he had last seen the banner, the day that he had sat alongside his men on the hillside opposite and Morcar had described the flags and their origin in the soft light of the dawn. No doubt, Erik mused as the flag was teased out in a cat’s paw of wind, the rag now smelled of smoke after all the harrying it had witnessed since that day. It was the perfect opportunity to hit them with a flanking attack, to surge from cover and scatter the southerners to the winds and take their revenge, but Erik wanted more. An army had come into his kingdom, killed and harried his folk, and although the Yorkish earls and other members of the witan had been found less than robust in their response their reckoning too would follow. Three miles to the south the trap was set, and although they did not yet know it, the riders returning home to thrill boys and maidens with their tales of conquest were already as good as dead.

  Thorstein spoke again: ‘nine hundred?’ He clicked his tongue as a final knot of horsemen appeared from behind the tree cover, before flashing his lord a smile. ‘Make it a round thousand then!’

  Erik nodded, turning the head of his horse away as the tally agreed with his own. The king ran through his plan as the horses picked their way back down the path to the place where they had left the army. A thousand spearmen was a sizeable force, but the place he had chosen to spring the trap was narrow and his army burned with shame after a summer spent dodging conflict as they watched great columns of smoke cloud their land; Erik knew they would be pitiless when the shields finally clashed. Forewarned of their arrival the army was already in the saddle, and Erik clenched a fist and threw them a heartening grin as he took his place at the head. ‘Morcar!’ he called. ‘Bring your Northumbrians nearer the head of the column. I want them alongside me in the front rank when the fighting starts.’

  Thorstein chuckled as the war party who had brought the archbishop’s reply to Harald’s letter urged their horses forward. ‘That is one way to ensure Regenwold is good to his word!’

  Erik’s eyes flashed. ‘He will be there!’

  Raising his spear high, the king urged his mount forward with a cry of joy that they were carrying the war to the enemy at last, and as the horse gained speed the pathway widened and the valley came into view. Silver specks dancing beneath a canopy of flags to the south showed where the English rearguard were cantering towards the ford with the air of men returning from a day hunt, and Erik slowed the column to a trot as they too gained the roadway lest an eagle-eyed enemy pick them out through the heat haze. With the drop in pace Erik became aware of an angry buzz in the distance, and he exchanged a look of excitement with the men at his side as they all recognised the sound for what it was. Erik flashed them a smile: ‘Regenwold! The Kentish scouts have reached the ford.’

  The woodland drew back as they grew nearer to the crossing place, the Roman Rigg following part of the shallow ridge which gave it its name for the final mile before reaching the River Aire and crossing out of Northumbrian land, and Erik slowed his mount to a walk, running his gaze across the plain below as he waited for the rest of the army to come up and deploy for battle. The southern bank of the river shimmered in the heat of the day as Regenwold and the men of his earldom stood shoulder to shoulder in their shield wall to deny the men of Kent any hope of crossing, and although the heat of the past few days had shrunk the floodwaters back from either side of the causeway, Erik’s scouts had assured him that the water meadow to either side remained a morass. Down on the roadway itself the English horsemen had come to a halt as Regenwold’s men appeared across their path, and the skittish movements of those at the rear of the column told Erik that his own army had at last been spotted too. At the centre of the line the roadway shone like a newly struck coin, and Erik’s eyes flared with excitement as he saw that the ealdorman, his thanes and gesith must be concentrated there. Trapped on the causeway, strung out in line of march and unable to form a battle line by the boggy nature of the ground to either side, the rearguard was caught in the unenviable position of facing an attack from two directions with the least experienced of their troops, the levy men who made up the bulk of any field army. Thorstein knew it too, and Erik recognised the excitement in his huskarl’s voice as he formed his thoughts into words. ‘Attack straight away lord, don’t wait for our tail to come up; hit them hard, now.’ His lips pulled back into a snarl, and even Erik felt a chill as he saw the savagery in his eyes. ‘If Regenwold attacks across the river, we can hack away the rump of their army before we even come up against their best troops.’

  Erik threw a look to either side. Gamli and Harald had brought the crews of the Isbjorn and the Auk to flank the men of the Draki, and the other crews were coming up fast. Down on the causeway the mournful howl of a war horn was soon joined by the higher pitched blare of dozens of hunting horns, and Erik shared a look of alarm with his huskarls as the significance dawned upon them. ‘They are calling for help,’ Erik said as the sound split the sultry air. ‘That means they believe at least part of their army should be close enough to come to their aid.’

  ‘Tateshale,’ Helgrim offered. ‘That is where I would wait. It has water for horses, a mill and granary and it is only three miles from the border. If they are changing the rearguard every day, leapfrogging south, it would be an ideal place to do so.’

  ‘We can’t fit all the men we have here already onto the width of the causeway,’ Thorstein added in support of his friend. ‘There is no benefit in waiting, and a lot to lose.’

  Erik nodded. ‘You are both right, we need to move and move fast.’ He threw a look back across his shoulder and called to his banner man. ‘Sturla, are you set?’

  Sturla caused a ripple of laughter to rise from those within hearing distance as he gave a pithy reply. ‘You ask me that every time we are about to go into battle lord. Have I ever not been set?’

  Erik joined in the laughter before speaking again. ‘Then hold my banner high. I want these Kentishmen to know that the king of Northumbria has come to harvest their souls.’ He shot a look across to Morcar and his men a dozen paces to his right. ‘Morcar, you have the cross from Sheptun church
?’

  Archbishop Wulfstan’s thane beamed with pride as the golden cross rose into the air on its wooden shaft, shimmering as it caught the sun. The prelate’s gesith Oswy and Wystan were at his side with a further hundred toughened fighters at their backs. They had ridden through the night to carry their lord’s reply back to Erik and were as eager as any man there to get to grips with the southern enemy. Beyond them Gamli had seen the standards beginning to climb into the summer air, and Erik’s fingertips went to his cheek to dab at the sacrificial blood as the Allfather’s raven sigil joined them. He had resisted the urge to remove the horse blood from the night before after all despite the discomfort, and found now that he was glad.

  Thorstein snorted at the sight and shook his head in wonder. ‘The raven and the cross,’ he breathed. ‘I never thought to see the day when Óðinn’s war flag went forward into battle alongside the cross of the Christ.’ Erik shrugged as he urged his mount forward with a squeeze of his knees. ‘Men wear the hammer of Þórr alongside the raven of Óðinn, or even a holey stone to ward off elf shot. If they fight lustily for their king, what concern is it of his if some add another?’

  Erik rode a few paces forward, hauling at the reins to face the army as the trapped men behind him began to beat their spears against their shields. ‘We think that they are attempting to summon help,’ he cried out, ‘so the quicker we get among them the better. We will ride down onto the causeway, dismount and attack immediately. No horns, shouts or chanting. There is no point in helping them by adding to the din.’

  Before the men could reply Erik had wheeled about, kicking back his heels as he urged the beast down the roadway. The horse picked up speed quickly on the slope, and Erik withdrew one of his gold inlaid spears from its carrying place as it ran. By the time that he had retrieved the dart the enemy ranks filled the view ahead, and he opened his body to send the spear arcing over the enemy host in an echo of Óðinn’s throw in the war against the Vanir at the start of the very first war: ‘Óðinn owns you all!’