Conqueror

by Baxter, Stephen

  Arngrim screamed his name. ‘Egil!’

  The Dane turned. But then the current of the battle separated them, and Arngrim had to deal with the next young man who threw himself at him, sword flashing, eager to die, and then with the next, and the next.

  XVI

  In the King’s camp, priests prayed and women waited nervously.

  This Monday in May was peaceful. The sun was warm on Cynewulf’s face. In the churned-up mud of the camp’s floor green grass shoots struggled to find air and light amid the prints of feet and hooves.

  He could hear nothing of the battle. Somehow it seemed wrong that men should be slaughtering each other with so little noise; there ought to be a grander sound, a slamming like thunder, perhaps, and flashes in the sky.

  At last his curiosity overcame his caution.

  It wasn’t hard to slip out of the camp. But he had gone only a dozen paces when Ibn Zuhr caught him up. ‘Arngrim told me to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘I don’t trust you, Moor.’

  ‘I don’t trust you either. So we’re even.’

  Cynewulf eyed him. ‘Come, then.’

  Retracing his tracks from the day when he had gone spying with Arngrim, he made for the high ground from which they had watched the Danish camp.

  From here Cynewulf could see the battle laid out as if on a diagram. There was the King’s party - he thought he recognised Alfred himself, his jewelled crown a pinprick of colour, his dragon banner fluttering. Around him his reserve troops milled, most of them fyrd, a muddy, homogenous mass. On the other side of the killing field was a mirror-image party that must be Guthrum and his own companions.

  And between these two poles of command was the battle front. All Cynewulf could make out was a compressed mass of hundreds of men, pressed together beneath glittering swords and axes. At the centre of the mob was a kind of bloody froth, a line of bright crimson, where the swords stabbed and the axes swung. Cynewulf was astonished by the brightness of the blood, the quantity of it, and the almost neat way limbs were severed and torsos sliced through.

  Pagans were much drawn to boundary places, river banks and ocean surfaces, places where one world touched another. That clash of shield walls was just such a boundary place, a boundary between death and life, where breathing men were stabbed and hewn to lifeless pulp.

  Ibn Zuhr was analytical, dismissive. ‘Only a few hundred men on each side. This would have been no more than an incident in the great battles of the past. The Caesars brought armies of tens of thousands to this island. And there is no tactic but to press and thrust. A thousand years ago Alexander the Great used cavalry to—’

  Cynewulf didn’t know what cavalry was, and didn’t care. ‘Shut up,’ he snarled.

  The Moor seemed startled by the priest’s anger. But he said, ‘We have seen all we can see. We should go.’

  Cynewulf couldn’t bear to look at the man. But he nodded, and the two of them withdrew.

  XVII

  Fighting down the slope of the ridge rather than up it was a slight advantage that became greater as the day wore on, as men fell, and those who survived became exhausted and weakened by blows and injuries. And so the English were steadily pressing the Danes back down the hill, back towards their camp, the skjaldborg intact but retreating step by step.

  But the shield wall was a mill that ground up men. As warriors fell, each side poured in more and more bodies, living men to be processed to corpses. The English did outnumber the Danes, but once the cream of the English army was used up there would be only the low-quality levies left. If the skjaldborg did not break soon, Arngrim saw, the English would lose the battle simply by bleeding to death.

  How was it to be broken? Even as he cut and stabbed and thrust, even as he felt his own strength drain with the blood he must be losing, Arngrim tried to think, just as the King had urged him to. If they couldn’t batter their way through the Danes, what was to be done?

  Then Egil reared up before him once more. The Beast of Cippanhamm had lost his helmet, and some lucky English blow had smashed his teeth, turning his mouth into a bloody pit lined with jagged stumps. But his eyes were wild. He was laughing.

  And he recognised Arngrim.

  In that instant Amgrim thought of Cynewulf and his prophecy. If not for the Menologium this battle might not be taking place at all, for Alfred might not have found the determination to wage it - and if not for the Menologium the Beast would not have the faith in his own invulnerability which must have carried him through battle after battle, to this field. They were here, Amgrim thought, both of them, positioned like counters on a game board, because of the Weaver, the sage of the furthest future. And yet they could die here.

  Egil threw himself forward.

  Their shields slammed. Arngrim was thrust back half a pace. Egil stepped back to drive again, but before the Dane could close Arngrim raised his shield and slammed its boss into Egil’s face. Egil staggered, his nose a bloody ruin, and Arngrim had room to draw Ironsides from its scabbard on his back. But Egil came on again, spattering Arngrim with blood and spit and snot, and their shields clashed once more. It was almost with relief that Arngrim realised that he could give himself up to this elemental fight, let himself fall into the pit of darkness inside him.

  But he must think. To break the Danish shield wall was more important than to sate himself in a private war with this animal of a man - and in a flash he saw how he could do it.

  With a roar and a vast exertion he shoved Egil back once more. And the next time Egil came at him, rather than facing Egil’s charge, he flung himself backwards. He clattered into the fyrdmen behind him and finished up on his back.

  Egil, off balance and caught by surprise, ran a couple of steps forward and tumbled over. His huge strength had been holding this section of the Danes’ wall together, and without his support the Danes around him slipped and fell. A length of the skjaldborg collapsed, battered Danish shields knocking against each other.

  And the English, roaring, rushed into the gap like flies into a wound.

  Arngrim’s ploy had worked. Now all he needed was a grain of luck for himself, a splinter of time.

  But his luck ran out. Egil was already on his feet, and standing over him. The blade of his axe flashed.

  Arngrim had no time to raise his shield, no time to roll away. The iron cut through his mail shirt, between his belly and his groin, and buried itself deep in his gut. Pain slammed, and the world greyed.

  Egil stood over him, still laughing from that ruin of a mouth. And he dragged at his axe. Arngrim could feel the blade slice through soft organs. And then it caught on something, perhaps his pelvis. More pain burst inside him.

  But he still held Ironsides. Screaming, he swung his sword.

  The heavy, faithful blade cut through Egil’s right arm just below the shoulder, in a stroke as neat as a butcher’s. Egil howled. His arm hanging by threads of gristle, he lost his grip on his axe. And Amgrim grabbed Egil’s hand. As Egil stumbled back Arngrim twisted the hand with the last of his strength, so that the final bits of gristle snapped, and the severed arm fell across his belly.

  The world swam away.

  XVIII

  With victory secured, Alfred’s priests launched themselves into a long sequence of services of thanksgiving. Alfred endured this for an hour.

  Then he broke up the services and put the priests to work. In their vestments they were sent down to the battlefield, where they were to tend the English wounded. His clerks too were sent to the field, to work their way across broken soil soaked in blood, to retrieve the weapons of the dead, swords and spears and shields. Even arrow-heads were to be retrieved for their precious iron, Alfred ordered, plucked from the bodies of the dead if necessary.

  Alfred knew the fight was not yet done, and even in the aftermath of this great triumph he was thinking ahead. The surviving Danes were retreating to their old quarters at Cippanhamm. There they would have to be starved out by a siege - and for that the English would need all
the weapons they could muster.

  Cynewulf waited in the camp until Arngrim was brought in.

  Two thegns bore the body, laid out on two shields set on spears. Arngrim’s face was battered to bloody meat, his mail shirt punctured in a dozen places, and even the shields on which he was carried were splintered and broken. With him on his improvised bier was his sword Ironsides, undamaged but bloodstained - and the severed arm of the beast Egil.

  Alfred had the arm of the Beast nailed to the great oak tree at the heart of the camp, above his giving-throne, where all men could see it. Alfred announced that the English had won the day because of the advantage of the high ground, because they had taken the battle to the Danes after a winter of containment - and because of the courage and intelligence of Arngrim, who had made the crucial break in the skjaldborg.

  Cynewulf had his cousin laid out in a tent, on a heap of blankets. He immediately found the main wound. It was a rip in Arngrim’s lower belly, made by a blow powerful enough to have cut through his mail. Though one of the King’s own physicians fussed around, Cynewulf chased him away. He would have nobody tend his cousin save Ibn Zuhr. Though he had always despised the Moor Cynewulf had no doubt that his foreign medicine was better than anything the King’s doctors could muster.

  But Ibn Zuhr said there was little he could do. ‘The wound is too deep,’ he murmured. ‘His intestines are gashed too - there will be internal bleeding, infection from the spilled contents of his gut—’

  Cynewulf, sickened, said, ‘Just do your best, Moor.’

  So Ibn Zuhr cleaned his hands in hot water, and made a potion of his obscure herbs, a kind of tea which he had Cynewulf hold under the thegn’s nose. This would deepen his unconscious state, the Moor said, while he worked. Then he cleaned out the wound. This was a rough job, as Ibn Zuhr scooped out dirt and dried blood and yellow fat and pus from the cavity, as if gutting a pig. Then he pulled the thegn’s organs back into place. He had Cynewulf hold the two ragged sides of the wound together - it was difficult, the flesh was slippery with blood, and the priest needed all his strength - while Ibn Zuhr stitched the wound with a bone needle and gut thread. When it was done he washed the wound with wine, and covered it with a light silken cloth.

  The Moor stood back, breathing hard, his arms bloodied to the elbow. ‘I have done my best,’ he said.

  ‘I believe you,’ murmured Cynewulf.

  ‘I don’t.’ The voice was a gurgle, as if his throat was full of blood. But Arngrim’s eyes were open.

  ‘Cousin! You are alive!’

  ‘The gates of the Upperworld are closed to me yet.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  Arngrim grimaced, as if trying to laugh. ‘For a priest you are an idiot, Cynewulf. I half-woke while the Moor was rummaging in my gut. Imagine how that felt. Worse than the Dane’s blade.’

  ‘I’m not ready to give you the last rites yet.’

  ‘My sword. And my trophy.’

  ‘Ironsides is here, at the foot of the bed. And the King nailed the Beast’s arm to the oak tree.’

  Amgrim snorted. ‘That will do. Egil lived, I think. But by Woden’s eyes I hope the bastard dies of the wound I inflicted on him today. Listen, Cynewulf. When I die - my sword - I promised it to the river—’

  ‘Arngrim, I’m a priest of Christ. I can’t perform a pagan ritual.’

  ‘You must,’ Arngrim croaked. ‘Or my way to the Upperworld will be barred. You are kin, Cynewulf. Isn’t human blood more important than an argument between gods? And my family in Brycgstow. Tell my sons how their father died.’

  Cynewulf, through tears, had to smile. ‘You speak of your sword before your family.’

  Arngrim grunted. ‘Tell them that too. Make them laugh instead of cry. And don’t you go baptising them on the sly, you pious bastard.’ He coughed, and groaned as the spasm tore at his wound.

  Ibn Zuhr stepped forward. ‘You must rest now.’ He held a cup full of another of his teas. ‘Drink this, and you will sleep a while.’ One arm was concealed by his body as he leaned over Arngrim, the other arm raised the cup. Arngrim accepted the drink. But as the liquid touched his lips his eyes widened. Then he fell back into unconsciousness.

  Cynewulf stayed with his cousin all night, praying. But the thegn did not wake again.

  And as the dawn light broke over a green country that was once again English, Arngrim breathed his last. Cynewulf closed his cousin’s mouth and eyes, and wiped his face clean of the last of his blood and sweat.

  It was only then, as Cynewulf stood back from his cousin’s body, that he noticed the dagger which protruded from Arngrim’s side, buried up to the hilt. And he knew how he had finally died, what Ibn Zuhr had done in that moment when he had leaned over Arngrim’s body to give him the sleeping potion.

  For the rest of the day Cynewulf searched for the Moorish slave, but he had vanished.

  That evening Cynewulf rode alone to the river bank, bearing Ironsides. The weapon was so heavy Cynewulf could barely lift it, let alone imagine wielding it in combat.

  At the river bank, Cynewulf tethered his horse at a tree. The water lapped peacefully, and birds fluttered away as he walked. He would never have known that yesterday hundreds of men had wilfully murdered each other, not an hour’s ride from here.

  He walked along the bank until he found an outcropping of rock. He jammed the sword into a break in the rock face, and hauled at its hilt. The mighty blade would barely bend at his pulling, let alone break. Cynewulf told himself there was no shame in using his mind in carrying out this pagan ritual. He found a broken branch about as long as the sword, and with his belt fixed it to Ironsides’ hilt. After a couple of false starts, with his whole weight applied to his lever, he managed at last to bend the sword, and break it.

  Then, breathing hard, he took the two halves of the sword and hurled them into the river, muttering prayers to God, and to Woden.

  XIX

  Cynewulf saw Alfred only once more. The King summoned him to Lunden, won back from the Danes.

  It was nine years after Ethandune.

  ‘And it will be,’ Cynewulf remarked, as his patient horse bore him along the broken Roman road towards Lunden, ‘a meeting I would never have imagined could take place, in the darkest hours at Aethelingaig.’

  ‘What’s that, Father?’ asked Saberht, who rode at his side.

  ‘Oh, nothing, boy, nothing,’ Cynewulf said. ‘Just talking to myself.’

  The novice scratched his tonsure, raggedly cut in a head of thick black hair. Of course, his manner implied, this mumbling dotage was to be expected of a man of Cynewulf’s advanced years - nearly forty, by God.

  Cynewulf wiped the sweat of an unseasonably warm April day from his brow, and tried to master his irritation. After all, it wasn’t the boy’s fault he was growing old. The novice, not yet twenty, was as lithe as a stoat, and as randy, as his lurid confessions proved. But he was a good boy who did his best to take care of Cynewulf, even if he did treat the priest as if he were Methuselah’s twin.

  Of course forty years was well short of the three-score-years-and-ten promised in the Bible. But life was hard in these fallen times, and bodies wore out, even those of priests. In particular Cynewulf’s knees ached constantly, no doubt a relic of the long hours he spent on them each day. He embraced such suffering and dedicated it to God.

  But in a sense he had been spared. Most of Cynewulf’s boyhood friends were dead and gone, and he knew very few people older than himself. Suddenly he found himself lost in a world full of youthful innocents, like Saberht, who knew nothing of the remote past of thirty years ago, or twenty or even ten, the days of Aethelingaig and Ethandune, knew nothing and cared less.

  Why, Saberht didn’t even fear the Dane. To him the Dane was a spent force who had been defeated by Alfred and now, in the King’s latter years, was being beaten steadily back. Oh, the Dane clung on in the north-east, but what was there to fear? So quickly the generations turned, Cynewulf thought, so quickly the past was forgotten
.

  But Cynewulf had not forgotten, and nor had Alfred.

  So Saberht was unafraid of the Dane - but, oddly, he was wary of Lunden.

  On this last day of travelling, coming down towards Lunden from the north—through lands taken under Alfred’s sway from the Danes just a year ago - they crossed over a ridge of high ground, and Lunden and its river opened up before them. Cynewulf pulled up his horse, breathing hard, and Saberht slowed beside him.

  The river snaked lazily across a broad valley, its waters shining like beaten iron. The Roman wall was a great ellipse that hugged the north bank. The city had been abandoned so long ago that mature oak trees sprouted from the foundations of ruined office buildings. But today, smoke rose up from a hundred fires burning within the walls and gathered in a pall. For centuries the English had shunned Lunden’s antique walls, but today the old city was no longer empty.

  ‘Now look,’ Cynewulf instructed Saberht. ‘What a magnificent sight. And there are layers of histories, visible to us even from here.’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ Saberht mumbled passively.

  ‘Once the Romans called this place Londinium, and it was the capital of their province, one of the greatest cities of the western empire. Now it is ours, and we call it Lundenburh.’ Fortified Lunden.

  Alfred had planted his burhs, his new towns, across his half of an England partitioned between Wessex and the Danes. The burhs had been based on the remains of Roman cities, or older hill-forts, or where necessary had been built from scratch, like Wealingaford. The streets were planned, the towns walled by stone or turf, and every one of them had a mint and a market. It was a whole country laid out to a grand design. Ultimately no point in England would be more than twenty Roman miles from a burh - and when the Northmen came again, they would find a country of towns rolled up like hedgehogs.