The Last Kingdom sc-1

by Bernard Cornwell

  “There’ll be trouble when we get back,” I warned him.

  “Of course there’ll be trouble,” he agreed, “trouble from the shire reeve, from the ealdorman, from the bishop, and from the whole damned lot of them.” He laughed suddenly, a very rare occurrence. “So let’s kill some Danes first.”

  We did. And by chance it was the same ship that had shamed us, and she tried the same trick again, but this time I turnedHeahengel into her and our bows smashed into her quarter and our twelve archers were loosing shafts into her crew.Heahengel had ridden up over the other ship, half sinking her and pinning her down, and Leofric led a charge over the prow, and there was blood thickening the water in the Viking bilge. Two of our men managed to tie the ships together, which meant I could leave the steering oar and, without bothering to put on either helmet or mail coat, I jumped aboard with SerpentBreath and joined the fight. There were shields clashing in the wide midships, spears jabbing, swords and axes swinging, arrows flighting overhead, men screaming, men dying, the rage of battle, the joy of blade song, and it was all over beforeCeruphin orCristenlic could join us.

  How I did love it. To be young, to be strong, to have a good sword, and to survive. The Danish crew had been fortysix strong and all but one died, and he only lived because Leofric bellowed that we must take a prisoner. Three of our men died, and six were foully wounded and they probably all died once we got them ashore, but we bailed out the Viking ship and went back to Hamtun with her in tow, and in her blooddrenched belly we found a chest of silver that she had stolen from a monastery on Wiht. Leofric presented a generous amount to the bowmen, so that when we went ashore and were confronted by the reeve, who demanded that we give up the archers, only two of them wanted to go. The rest could see their way to becoming wealthy, and so they stayed.

  The prisoner was called Hroi. His lord, whom we had killed in the battle, had been called Thurkil and he served Guthrum, who was in East Anglia where he now called himself king of that country. “Does he still wear the bone in his hair?” I asked.

  “Yes, lord,” Hroi said. He did not call me lord because I was an ealdorman, for he did not know that. He called me lord because he did not want me to kill him when the questioning was done. Hroi did not think Guthrum would attack this year. “He waits for Halfdan,” he told me.

  “And Halfdan’s where?”

  “In Ireland, lord.”

  “Avenging Ivar?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “You know Kjartan?”

  “I know three men so called, lord.”

  “Kjartan of Northumbria,” I said, “father of Sven.”

  “Earl Kjartan, you mean?”

  “He calls himself an earl now?” I asked.

  “Yes, lord, and he is still in Northumbria.”

  “And Ragnar? Son of Ragnar the Fearless?”

  “Earl Ragnar is with Guthrum, lord, in East Anglia. He has four boats.”

  We chained Hroi and sent him under guard to Wintanceaster for Alfred liked to talk with Danish prisoners. I do not know what happened to him. He was probably hanged or beheaded, for Alfred did not extend Christian mercy to pagan pirates.

  And I thought of Ragnar the Younger, Earl Ragnar now, and wondered if I would meet his boats on the Wessex coast, and wondered too whether Hroi had lied and that Guthrum would invade that summer. I thought he would, for there was much fighting across the island of Britain. The Danes of Mercia had attacked the Britons in north Wales, I never did discover why, and other Danish bands raided across the West Saxon frontier, and I suspected those raids were meant to discover West Saxon weaknesses before Guthrum launched his great army, but no army came and, as the summer reached its height, Alfred felt safe enough to leave his forces in North Wessex to visit the fleet. His arrival coincided with news that seven Danish ships had been seen off Heilincigae, an island that lay in shallow waters not far to Hamtun’s east, and the news was confirmed when we saw smoke rising from a pillaged settlement. Only half our ships were in Hamtun, the others were at sea, and one of the six in port, theEvangelista, was on the hard having her bottom scraped. Hacca was nowhere near Hamtun, gone to his brother’s house probably, and he would doubtless be annoyed that he had missed the king’s visit, but Alfred had given us no warning of his arrival, probably because he wanted to see us as we really were, rather than as we would have been had we known he was coming. As soon as he heard about the Danes off Heilincigae he ordered us all to sea and boardedHeahengel along with two of his guards and three priests, one of whom was Beocca who came to stand beside the steering oar.

  “You’ve got bigger, Uhtred,” he said to me, almost reproachfully. I was a good head taller than him now, and much broader in the chest.

  “If you rowed, father,” I said, “you’d get bigger.”

  He giggled. “I can’t imagine myself rowing,” he said, then pointed at my steering oar. “Is that difficult to manage?” he asked.

  I let him take it and suggested he turn the boat slightly to the steorbord and his crossed eyes widened in astonishment as he tried to push the oar and the water fought against him. “It needs strength,” I said, taking the oar back.

  “You’re happy, aren’t you?” He made it sound like an accusation.

  “I am, yes.”

  “You weren’t meant to be,” he said.

  “No?”

  “Alfred thought this experience would humble you.”

  I stared at the king who was up in the bows with Leofric, and I remembered the king’s honeyed words about me having something to teach these crews, and I realized he had known I had nothing to contribute, yet he had still given me the helmet and armor. That, I assumed, was so I would give him a year of my life in which he hoped Leofric would knock the arrogance out of my bumptious youthfulness.

  “Didn’t work, did it?” I said, grinning.

  “He said you must be broken like a horse.”

  “But I’m not a horse, father. I’m a lord of Northumbria. What did he think? That after a year I’d be a meek Christian ready to do his bidding?”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  “It’s a bad thing,” I said. “He needs proper men to fight the Danes, not praying lickspittles.”

  Beocca sighed, then made the sign of the cross because poor Father Willibald was feeding the gulls with his vomit. “It’s time you were married, Uhtred,” Beocca said sternly. I looked at him in astonishment. “Married! Why do you say that?”

  “You’re old enough,” Beocca said.

  “So are you,” I retorted, “and you’re not married, so why should I be?”

  “I live in hope,” Beocca said. Poor man, he had a squint, a palsied hand, and a face like a sick weasel, which really did not make him a great favorite with women. “But there is a young woman in Defnascir you should look at,” he told me enthusiastically, “a very well born young lady! A charming creature, and…” He paused, evidently having run out of the girl’s qualities, or else because he could not invent any new ones. “Her father was the shire reeve, rest his soul. A lovely girl. Mildrith, she’s called.” He smiled at me expectantly.

  “A reeve’s daughter,” I said flatly. “The king’s reeve? The shire reeve?”

  “Her father was reeve of southern Defnascir,” Beocca said, sliding the man down the social ladder, “but he left Mildrith property. A fair piece of land near Exanceaster.”

  “A reeve’s daughter,” I repeated, “not an ealdorman’s daughter?”

  “She’s sixteen, I believe,” Beocca said, gazing at the shingled beach sliding away to our east.

  “Sixteen,” I said scathingly, “and unmarried, which suggests she has a face like a bag of maggots.”

  “That is hardly relevant,” he said crossly.

  “You don’t have to sleep with her,” I said, “and no doubt she’s pious?”

  “She is a devoted Christian, I’m happy to say.”

  “You’ve seen her?” I asked.

  “No,” he admitted, “but Alfred has tal
ked of her.”

  “This is Alfred’s idea?”

  “He likes to see his men settled, to have their roots in the land.”

  “I’m not his man, Father. I’m Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and the lords of Bebbanburg don’t marry pious maggotfaced bitches of low birth.”

  “You should meet her,” he persisted, frowning at me. “Marriage is a wonderful thing, Uhtred, ordained by God for our happiness.”

  “How would you know?”

  “It is,” he insisted weakly.

  “I’m already happy,” I said. “I hump Brida and I kill Danes. Find another man for Mildrith. Why don’t you marry her? Good God, Father, you must be near thirty! If you don’t marry soon you’ll go to your grave a virgin. Are you a virgin?”

  He blushed, but did not answer because Leofric came back to the steering deck with a black scowl. He never looked happy, but he appeared grimmer than ever at that moment and I had an idea that he had been arguing with Alfred, an argument he had plainly lost. Alfred himself followed, a serene look of indifference on his long face. Two of his priests trailed him, carrying parchment, ink, and quills, and I realized notes were being taken. “What would you say, Uhtred, was the most crucial equipment for a ship?” Alfred asked me. One of the priests dipped his quill in the ink in readiness for my answer, then staggered as the ship hit a wave. God knows what his writing looked like that day. “The sail?” Alfred prompted me. “Spears? Archers? Shields? Oars?”

  “Buckets,” I said.

  “Buckets?” He looked at me with disapproval, suspecting I was mocking him.

  “Buckets to bail the ship, lord,” I said, nodding down intoHeahengel ’s belly where four men scooped out seawater and chucked it over the side, though a good deal landed on the rowers. “What we need, lord, is a better way of caulking ships.”

  “Write that down,” Alfred instructed the priests, then stood on tiptoe to look across the intervening low land into the sea lake where the enemy ships had been sighted.

  “They’ll be long gone,” Leofric growled.

  “I pray not,” Alfred said.

  “The Danes don’t wait for us,” Leofric said. He was in a terrible mood, so terrible that he was willing to snarl at his king. “They aren’t fools,” he went on. “They land, they raid, and they go. They’ll have sailed on the ebb.” The tide had just turned and was flooding against us now, though I never did quite understand the tides in the long waters from the sea to Hamtun for there were twice as many high tides there as anywhere else. Hamtun’s tides had a mind of their own, or else were confused by the channels.

  “The pagans were there at dawn,” Alfred said.

  “And they’ll be miles away by now,” Leofric said. He spoke to Alfred as if he was another crewman, using no respect, but Alfred was always patient with such insolence. He knew Leofric’s worth. But Leofric was wrong that day about the enemy. The Viking ships were not gone, but still off Heilincigae, all seven of them, having been trapped there by the falling tide. They were waiting for the rising water to float them free, but we arrived first, coming into the sea lake through the narrow entrance that leads from the northern bank of the Solente. Once through the entrance a ship is in a world of marshes, sandbanks, islands, and fish traps, not unlike the waters of the Gewæsc. We had a man aboard who had grown up on those waters, and he guided us, but the Danes had lacked any such expertise and they had been misled by a line of withies, stuck into the sand at low tide to mark a channel, which had been deliberately moved to entice them onto a mudbank on which they were now firmly stuck. Which was splendid. We had them trapped like foxes in a onehole earth and all we had to do was anchor in the sealake entrance, hope our anchors held against the strong currents, wait for them to float off, and then slaughter them, but Alfred was in a hurry. He wanted to get back to his land forces and insisted we return him to Hamtun before nightfall, and so, against Leofric’s advice, we were ordered to an immediate attack.

  That, too, was splendid, except that we could not approach the mudbank directly for the channel was narrow and it would mean going in single file and the lead ship would face seven Danish ships on its own, and so we had to row a long way to approach them from the south, which meant that they could escape to the sea lake’s entrance if the tide floated them off, which it might very well do, and Leofric muttered into his beard that we were going about the battle all wrong. He was furious with Alfred. Alfred, meanwhile, was fascinated by the enemy ships, that he had never seen so clearly before. “Are the beasts representations of their gods?” he asked me, referring to the finely carved prows and sterns that flaunted their monsters, dragons, and serpents.

  “No, lord, just beasts,” I said. I was beside him, having relinquished the steering oar to the man who knew these waters, and I told the king how the carved heads could be lifted off their posts so that they did not terrify the spirits of the land.

  “Write that down,” he ordered a priest. “And the wind vanes at the mastheads?” he asked me, looking at the nearer one that was painted with an eagle. “Are they designed to frighten the spirits?”

  I did not answer. Instead I was staring at the seven ships across the slick hump of the mudbank and I recognized one.WindViper. The lightcolored strake in the bow was clear enough, but even so I would have recognized her.WindViper, lovelyWindViper, ship of dreams, here at Heilincigae.

  “Uhtred?” Alfred prompted me.

  “They’re just wind vanes, lord,” I said. And ifWindViper was here, was Ragnar here too? Or had Kjartan taken the ship and leased it to a shipmaster?

  “It seems a deal of trouble,” Alfred said pettishly, “to decorate a ship.”

  “Men love their ships,” I said, “and fight for them. You honor what you fight for, lord. We should decorate our ships.” I spoke harshly, thinking we would love our ships more if they had beasts on their prows and had proper names likeBloodSpiller, SeaWolf, orWidowMaker. Instead theHeahengel led theCeruphin andCristenlic through the tangled waters, and behind us were theApostol and theEftwyrd, which meant Judgment Day and was probably the best named of our fleet because she sent more than one Dane to the sea’s embrace.

  The Danes were digging, trying to deepen the treacherous channel and so float their ships, but as we came nearer they realized they would never complete such a huge task and went back to their stranded boats to fetch armor, helmets, shields, and weapons. I pulled on my coat of mail, its leather lining stinking of old sweat, and I pulled on the helmet, then strapped SerpentBreath on my back and WaspSting to my waist. This was not going to be a sea fight, but a land battle, shield wall against shield wall, a maul in the mud, and the Danes had the advantage because they could mass where we must land and they could meet us as we came off the ships, and I did not like it. I could see Leofric hated it, but Alfred was calm enough as he pulled on his helmet. “God is with us,” he said.

  “He needs to be,” Leofric muttered, then raised his voice to shout at the steersman. “Hold her there!” It was tricky to keepHeahengel still in the swirling current, but we backed oars and she slewed around as Leofric peered at the shore. I assumed he was waiting for the other ships to catch up so that we could all land together, but he had seen a spit of muddy sand projecting from the shore and had worked out that if we beachedHeahengel there then our first men off the prow would not have to face a shield wall composed of seven Viking crews. The spit was narrow, only wide enough for three or four men to stand abreast, and a fight there would be between equal numbers. “It’s a good enough place to die, earsling,”

  he told me, and led me forward. Alfred hurried behind us. “Wait,” Leofric snapped at the king so savagely that Alfred actually obeyed. “Put her on the spit!” Leofric yelled back to the steersman, “Now!”

  Ragnar was there. I could see the eagle wing on its pole, and then I saw him, looking so like his father that for a moment I thought I was a boy again.

  “Ready, earsling?” Leofric said. He had assembled his half dozen best warriors, all of us in the prow, w
hile behind us the bowmen readied to launch their arrows at the Danes who were hurrying toward the narrow stretch of muddy sand. Then we lurched forward asHeahengel ’s bow scraped aground. “Now!”

  Leofric shouted, and we jumped overboard into water that came up to our knees, and then we instinctively touched shields, made the wall, and I was gripping WaspSting as the first Danes ran at us.

  “Kill them!” Leofric shouted, and I thrust the shield forward and there was the great clash of iron boss on limewood, and an ax whirled overhead, but a man behind me caught it on his shield and I was stabbing under my shield, bringing the short sword up, but she rammed into a Danish shield. I wrenched her free, stabbed again, and felt a pain in my ankle as a blade sliced through water and boot. Blood swirled in the sea, but I was still standing, and I heaved forward, smelling the Danes, gulls screaming overhead, and more of the Danes were coming, but more of our men were joining us, some up to their waists in the tide, and the front of the battle was a shoving match now because no one had room to swing a weapon. It was a grunting, cursing shield battle, and Leofric, beside me, gave a shout and we heaved up and they stepped back a half pace and our arrows slashed over our helmets and I slammed WaspSting forward, felt her break through leather or mail, twisted her in flesh, pulled her back, pushed with the shield, kept my head down under the rim, pushed again, stabbed again, brute force, stout shield, and good steel, nothing else. A man was drowning, blood streaming in the ripples from his twitching body, and I suppose we were shouting, but I never remember much about that. You remember the pushing, the smell, the snarling bearded faces, the anger, and thenCristenlic rammed her bows into the flank of the Danish line, crumpling men into the water, drowning and crushing them, and her crew jumped into the small waves with spears, swords, and axes. A third boat arrived, more men landed, and I heard Alfred behind me, shouting at us to break their line, to kill them. I was ramming WaspSting down at a man’s ankles, jabbing again and again, pushing with the shield, and then he stumbled and our line surged forward and he tried to stab up into my groin, but Leofric slammed his ax head down, turning the man’s face into a mask of blood and broken teeth. “Push!” Leofric yelled, and we heaved at the enemy, and suddenly they were breaking away and running.