The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8)

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘And who’d be the better ruler?’ I demanded. ‘Your half-brother or your half-sister?’

  He said nothing for a while, but Osferth was always truthful. ‘Æthelflaed,’ he finally admitted.

  ‘She should rule Mercia,’ I said firmly, though that would only happen if I could keep her daughter from Eardwulf’s marriage-bed and so prevent Wessex from swallowing Mercia.

  And that looked unlikely because in the middle of the morning as the rain at last showed signs of lessening, the horsemen came from the west. Just one man at first, riding a small horse that he checked on a hilltop across the flooded valley. He gazed at us, then spurred out of sight, but a few moments later there were six riders on the skyline. More men came, perhaps ten or eleven, but it was hard to tell because they scattered from the crest to explore the river valley, looking for a place to cross. ‘What happens now?’ my daughter asked.

  ‘They can’t hurt us so long as the floods stay,’ I said. The floods meant there was only one narrow way to approach the old fort, and I had more than enough men to hold that path.

  ‘And when the floods go?’

  I grimaced. ‘Then it becomes difficult.’

  Stiorra was holding a lambskin pouch that she now held towards me. I looked at the pouch, but did not take it. ‘Where did you find that?’ I asked her.

  ‘In Fagranforda.’

  ‘I thought it burned with everything else.’ I had lost so much when the Christians burned my buildings.

  ‘I found it years ago,’ she said, ‘before Wulfheard burned the hall. And I want to learn how to use them.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ I said. I took the pouch and untied the drawstring. Inside were two dozen alder sticks, slender and polished, none longer than a man’s forearm. They were runesticks, and they had belonged to Stiorra’s mother. Runesticks could tell the future, and Gisela had known how to read them, but I had never learned the secret. ‘Does Hella know?’

  ‘She never learned,’ Stiorra said.

  I turned the slender sticks, remembering Gisela casting them. ‘Sigunn will teach you,’ I said. Sigunn was my woman and, like Stiorra’s maid, she had been captured at Beamfleot. She had been among the women and children who had been brought this far by Osferth.

  ‘Sigunn can read the sticks?’ Stiorra asked, sounding dubious.

  ‘A little. She says you have to practise. Practise and dream.’ I slid the runesticks back into their pouch and smiled ruefully. ‘The sticks once said you would be the mother of kings.’

  ‘Was that mother’s prophecy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the sticks don’t lie?’

  ‘They never did for your mother.’

  ‘Then those people can’t hurt us,’ Stiorra said, nodding across the valley at the horsemen.

  But they could and they would as soon as the floods subsided, and there was little I could do to stop them. I had sent men to find ale in the flooded village, and others had pulled down another cattle byre so our fires would have fuel, but I sensed the enemy tightening a ring about us. By afternoon the rain was slight, gusting now on a cold east wind, and I watched from the ramparts and saw horsemen on every side, and then, as dusk darkened the floodwaters, I saw a line of horses and riders on the high ground to the north. One carried a banner, but the cloth was so waterlogged that it hung limp by the staff and was impossible to decipher.

  That night the glow of campfires lit the northern sky. The rain had stopped though every now and then a bitter shower swept spitefully through the darkness. I had sentries watching the lone path to the north, but no one tried to approach us in the darkness. They were content to wait, knowing that the floods would drain and we would be vulnerable. Folk stared at me in the hall’s firelight. They expected a miracle.

  Sigunn, my woman, was showing Stiorra the runesticks, but Sigunn, I knew, did not wholly understand them. She had dropped the sticks, and she and Stiorra were staring at their pattern, but what it meant neither could tell. Nothing good, I suspected, but I did not need the sticks to see the future. In the morning the enemy would demand two things: Æthelstan and Ælfwynn. Hand them over and we would be left in peace, but if I refused?

  Finan knew it too. He squatted beside me. ‘So?’

  ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘They’ll not want to fight us.’

  ‘But they will if they must.’

  He nodded. ‘And there’ll be plenty of them.’

  ‘What I’ll do,’ I said, ‘is marry Uhtred to Ælfwynn. Father Cuthbert can do that.’

  ‘You can do that,’ Finan said, ‘and that just invites Eardwulf to kill him and make Ælfwynn a widow. Eardwulf won’t mind marrying a widow if she brings him Mercia.’

  He was right. ‘So you’ll take six men,’ I said, ‘and carry Æthelstan away.’

  ‘They’re all around us,’ he said.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ I said, ‘in the dark.’

  He nodded again, but he knew as well as I did that we were pissing into a gale. I had tried and I had failed. I had led my men, their women, their families, and everything we possessed to this waterlogged fort in the middle of Mercia, and my enemies were all around me. If I had been well, if I had been the Uhtred who had led men to battle against Cnut, then those enemies would be nervous, but they knew I was weakened. I had frightened men once, now I was the one who was frightened. ‘If we live through this,’ I told Finan, ‘I want to find Ice-Spite.’

  ‘Because she’ll cure you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so she will,’ he said.

  ‘But how?’ I asked gloomily. ‘Some bastard Dane will have her, and who knows where?’

  He stared at me, then shook his head. ‘A Dane?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘It can’t be a Dane,’ he said, frowning. ‘You went down the hill to meet Cnut and he came up the slope.’

  ‘I remember that much.’

  ‘The two of you fought in the open. There were no Danes near you. And once you’d killed him the Danes ran. I was the first to reach you.’

  I did not remember that, but then I remembered little of that fight except for the sudden surprise of Cnut’s blade in my side and the scream I gave as I cut his throat.

  ‘And the Danes can’t have taken his sword,’ Finan went on, ‘because they never went near his body.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘We did,’ Finan was frowning. ‘Cnut was on the ground and you were on top of him with his blade in you. I pulled you off and tugged the sword free, but I didn’t keep it. I was more worried about you. I looked for it later, but it was gone. Then I forgot about it.’

  ‘So it’s here,’ I said softly, meaning the sword was somewhere in Saxon Britain. ‘Who else was with you?’

  ‘Christ! They all came down the hill. Our men, the Welsh, Father Pyrlig, Father …’ he stopped abruptly.

  ‘Father Judas,’ I finished for him.

  ‘Of course he came!’ Finan said robustly. ‘He was worried for you.’ Father Judas. The man who had been my son. He called himself something else these days. ‘He wouldn’t hurt you, lord,’ Finan added earnestly.

  ‘He already has,’ I said savagely.

  ‘It’s not him,’ Finan said firmly.

  But whoever it was, they had won. Because I was trapped, and the dawn showed that the floods were already shrinking. Water foamed at the Roman bridge where trees and branches were trapped against the arches, while the roadways on either bank were still flooded, and those waters were keeping the men on the southern and western hills away from the fort. But the largest number of men were to our north. Those were the warriors who could attack straight down the Roman road and there were at least a hundred and fifty of them on the low rise of ground swelling from the water meadows. A few had spurred their horses into the floods, but abandoned their attempts to reach us when the water rose above their stirrups. Now they were content to wait, walking up and down on the skyline or just sitting on the nearer slope and staring tow
ards us. I could see black-robed priests there, but most of the men were warriors, their mail and helmets grey in the clouded day.

  By mid-afternoon the water had drained from much of the road, which was raised a few hand breadths above the fields. A dozen riders spurred from the hill. There were two priests, two standard-bearers, and the rest were warriors. The larger flag showed Æthelred’s white horse, while the smaller depicted a saint holding a cross. ‘Mercia and the church,’ Finan said.

  ‘No West Saxons,’ I noted.

  ‘They sent Eardwulf to do their dirty work?’

  ‘He has the most to gain,’ I said, ‘and the most to lose.’ I took a breath, bracing myself for the pain, and hauled myself into the saddle. Osferth, Finan, and my son were already mounted. The four of us were dressed for war, though, like the men who approached from the north, we carried no shields.

  ‘Do we take a banner?’ my son asked.

  ‘Don’t flatter them,’ I growled, and kicked my horse forward.

  The fort’s gateway was above water, but after a few yards the horses were splashing fetlock deep. I rode some eighty or ninety paces from the fort and there reined in and waited.

  Eardwulf led the Mercians. His dark face was grim, framed by a helmet decorated with silver serpents that writhed about the metal skull. He wore a white cloak over his polished mail, the linen edged with ermine, while his sword scabbard was bleached leather trimmed with silver strips. There was a heavy gold chain about his neck from which hung a golden cross studded with amethysts. There was a priest either side of him, both men riding smaller horses. Their black robes had dragged in the floods and hung dripping by their stirrups. They were the twins Ceolnoth and Ceolberht who, some thirty years before, had been captured with me by the Danes, a fate I had embraced, while the twins had become vehement haters of all pagans. They hated me too, especially Ceolberht, whose teeth I had kicked out, but at least that meant I could now tell them apart. Most of the horsemen stopped fifty paces away, but Eardwulf and the twins rode on until their horses confronted ours on the flooded road. ‘I bring a message from King Edward,’ Ceolnoth spoke without any greeting, ‘he says you are …’

  ‘Brought your puppies to do your yapping?’ I asked Eardwulf.

  ‘He says you are to return to Gleawecestre,’ Ceolnoth raised his voice, ‘with the boy Æthelstan and the king’s niece, Ælfwynn.’

  I stared at the three of them for a few heartbeats. A gust of wind brought a few drops of rain, sharp and fast, but the rain was gone almost as soon as it started. I looked up at the sky, hoping the rain would start again because the longer the floods lasted the more time I had, but if anything the clouds were lightening. Finan, Osferth, and my son were gazing at me, waiting for my response to Ceolnoth, but I just turned my horse. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  ‘Lord Uhtred!’ Eardwulf called.

  I spurred on. I would have laughed if it had not hurt so much. Eardwulf called again, but then we were out of earshot and cantering through the fort’s entrance. ‘Let them pick the bones out of that,’ I said. He would be confused. He had been hoping to test my resolve, perhaps even hoping that I would obey a summons from the West Saxon king, but my refusal to even talk to him suggested he would have to fight, and I knew Eardwulf would be reluctant to attack. He might outnumber me by at least three to one, but he would take grievous casualties in any fight, and no man wanted to face warriors like Finan in battle. Eardwulf could not even be sure that all his men would fight; plenty of them had served under me over the years and they would be reluctant to attack my shields. I remembered the black-bearded man in Gleawecestre’s gateway; he was a Mercian, sworn to Æthelred and Eardwulf, but he had grinned at me, been pleased to see me, and it would be difficult to persuade such men to fight me. And though Eardwulf was a warrior, and had a reputation, he did not inspire loyalty in his men. No one spoke of Eardwulf’s conquests, of the men he had cut down in single combat. He was a clever enough leader of men, but he let others do the grim work of slaughter, and that was why he did not inspire loyalty. Æthelflaed did, and I dare say that I did too.

  Eardwulf was still watching us when I dismounted. He stared for a while longer, then turned his horse and rode back to the dry ground. That ground was spreading as the waters fell, and there was further bad news as the afternoon wore on. More men came to join Eardwulf. They came from the north, and I guessed they were patrols that had been searching for us, but had been recalled so that by dusk there were over two hundred men on the low hill, and the floods were almost gone. ‘They’ll come at dawn,’ Finan said.

  ‘Probably,’ I agreed. Some of Eardwulf’s men might be reluctant, but the more warriors he gathered, the more likely they were to attack. The reluctant fighters would be in the second rank, hoping others would bear the brunt of the fight, and meanwhile the priests would be whipping them into a holy fervour, and Eardwulf would be promising them plunder. And Eardwulf had to attack. It was plain to me that Edward and Æthelhelm had wanted no part in this fighting. They could take Mercia whenever they wanted, but Eardwulf stood to lose his inheritance from Æthelred. If he failed, then the West Saxons would cut him adrift, and so he had to win. He would come in the dawn.

  ‘Suppose he attacks at night?’ my son asked.

  ‘He won’t,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be black as pitch, they’ll be floundering in water, they’ll get lost. He might send men to harass us, but we’ll put sentries on the road.’

  We also lit fires on the rampart, pulling down the last two cattle byres to find the fuel. Eardwulf could see my sentries coming and going in the light of those fires, though I doubted he knew I had men posted closer to him, but none of them was disturbed. He did not need to make a risky attack in the dark of night, not when he had the men to overwhelm me in the dawn.

  A star showed in the sky just before dawn. The clouds were clearing at last, blown away by a cold east wind. I had thought to send Osferth and forty horsemen across the bridge because there were fewer enemy on the south bank of the river. I planned to send Æthelstan, his sister and Ælfwynn with them, and let them hurry eastwards to Lundene while I stayed behind to defy Eardwulf, but he had anticipated me and, as the first light spilled over the world’s edge, I saw forty horsemen waiting just beyond the bridge. The flooding there was almost gone. The sun rose to show a damp world. The fields were half green and half shallow pools. Gulls had come from the faraway sea and flocked across the watery land.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ I said to Finan, pointing to the horsemen who blocked the bridge. The two of us were on horseback in the entrance gate of the old fort.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ he agreed.

  It was fate, I thought. Just fate. We think we control our own lives, but the gods play with us like children playing with straw dolls. I thought how often I had manoeuvred enemies into traps, of the joy of imposing my will on a foeman. The enemy believes he has choices, then discovers he has none, and now I was the one in the trap. Eardwulf had surrounded me, he outnumbered me, and he had foreseen my one desperate move, to escape across the bridge.

  ‘There’s still time to marry Ælfwynn to your son,’ Finan said.

  ‘And as you said that just invites Eardwulf to kill him,’ I said, ‘so he can marry the widow.’

  The sun was casting long shadows across the wet fields. I could see Eardwulf’s men mounting their horses on the northern crest. They carried shields now, shields and weapons.

  ‘It’s Æthelstan I care for,’ I said. I turned to look at the boy, who looked back at me with a brave face. He was doomed, I thought. Æthelhelm would have his throat cut in an eyeblink. I beckoned to him.

  ‘Lord?’ He looked up at me.

  ‘I’ve failed you,’ I said.

  ‘No, lord, never.’

  ‘Quiet, boy,’ I told him, ‘and listen to me. You are the son of a king. You are the eldest son. Nothing in our laws says the eldest son must be the next king, but the ætheling has more claim on the throne than anyone else. You should be the
King of Wessex after your father, but Æthelhelm wants your half-brother on the throne. Do you understand?’

  ‘Of course, lord.’

  ‘I swore an oath to protect you,’ I said, ‘and I’ve failed. For that, lord prince, I am sorry.’

  He blinked when I called him ‘prince’. I had never addressed him as royalty before. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then found nothing to say.

  ‘I have a choice now,’ I told him. ‘I can fight, but we’re outnumbered and this is a battle we can’t win. By mid-morning there’ll be a hundred dead men here and you’ll be a captive. They plan to send you across the sea to a monastery, and in two or three years, when you’ve been forgotten in Wessex, they’ll kill you.’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ he said in a whisper.

  ‘My other choice is to surrender,’ I said, and the word was like gall in my mouth. ‘If I do that,’ I went on, ‘then I live to fight another day. I live to take ship to Neustria. I will find you and rescue you.’ And that, I thought, was a promise with about as much substance as breath on a winter’s morning, but what else could I say? The truth, I thought sadly, was that Eardwulf would probably slit the boy’s throat and blame me. That would be his gift to Æthelhelm.

  Æthelstan looked past me. He was watching the horsemen on the far hill. ‘Will they let you live, lord?’ he asked.

  ‘If you were Eardwulf,’ I asked him, ‘would you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said seriously.

  ‘You’ll make a good king,’ I said. ‘They’ll want to kill me, but they don’t really want to fight me either. Eardwulf doesn’t want to lose half his men, so he’ll probably let me live. He’ll humiliate me, but I’ll live.’

  Yet I would not surrender too easily. At the least I could persuade him that to fight me was to lose men, and maybe that would make his surrender terms easier. Just outside the fort, to the south, the river made a bend, and I sent all our women and children to wait in the water meadow encircled by the river’s loop. The warriors made a shield wall in front of them, a shield wall that just stretched from river bank to river bank. That way, at least, Eardwulf could only attack from the front. It would even the fight somewhat, but he had such a predominance in numbers that I could not imagine winning. I just needed to delay him. I had sent those three young men to find help and maybe it was coming? Or maybe Thor would come from Asgard and use his hammer on my enemies?