The Pale Horseman s-2

by Bernard Cornwell

  'Where are our horses?' I shouted at Leofric, who looked bemused and I remembered he had not travelled to Cippanhamm with me. The beasts were probably still in the yard behind the Corncrake tavern, which meant they were lost.

  There was a fallen willow in a stand of leafless alders by the river and we paused there for breath, hidden by the willow's trunk. I pulled on the mail coat, buckled on my swords and took my helmet and shield from Leofric. 'Where's Haesten?' I asked.

  ‘He ran,' Leofric said curtly. So had the rest of my men. They had joined the panic and were gone southwards. Leofric pointed northwards.

  'Trouble,' he said curtly. There was a score of Danes riding down out bank of the river, blocking our escape, but they were still some distance away, while the men pursuing Odda had vanished, so Leofric led us across the water meadow to a tangle of thorns, alders, nettles and ivy. At its centre was an old wattle hut, perhaps a herdsman's shelter, and though the hut had half collapsed it offered a better hiding place than the willow and so the three of us plunged into the nettles and crouched behind the rotting timbers.

  A bell was ringing in the town. It sounded like the slow tolling which announced a funeral. It stopped abruptly, started again and then finally ended. A horn sounded. A dozen horsemen galloped close to our hiding place and all had black cloaks and black painted shields, the marks of Guthrum's warriors.

  Six

  i

  Guthrum. Guthrum the Unlucky. He called himself King of East Anglia, but he wanted to be King of Wessex and this was his third attempt to take the country and this time, I thought, his luck had turned. While Alfred had been celebrating the twelfth night of Yule, and while the Witan met to discuss the maintenance of bridges and the punishment of malefactors, Guthrum had marched. The army of the Danes was in Wessex, Cippanhamm had fallen, and the great men of Alfred's kingdom had been surprised, scattered or slaughtered. The horn sounded again and the dozen blackcloaked horsemen turned and rode towards the sound.

  'We should have known the Danes were coming,' I said angrily.

  'You always said they would,' Leofric said.

  'Didn't Alfred have spies at Gleawecestre?'

  'He had priests praying here instead,' Leofric said bitterly, 'and he trusted Guthrum's truce.'

  I touched my hammer amulet. I had taken it from a boy in Eoferwic. I had been a boy myself then, newly captured by the Danes, and my opponent had fought me in a whirl of fists and feet and I had hammered him down into the riverbank and taken his amulet. I still have it. I touch it often, reminding Thor that I live, but that day I touched it because I thought of Ragnar. The hostages would be dead, and was that why Wulfhere had ridden away at dawn? But how could he have known the Danes were coming? If Wulfhere had known then Alfred would have known and the West Saxon forces would have been ready. None of it made sense, except that Guthrum had again attacked during a truce and the last time he had broken a truce he had showed that he was willing to sacrifice the hostages held to prevent just such an attack. it seemed certain he had done it again and so Ragnar would be dead and my world was diminished.

  So many dead. There were corpses in the meadow between our hiding place and the river, and still the slaughter went on. Some of the Saxons had run back towards the town, discovered the bridge was guarded and tried to escape northwards and we watched them being ridden down by the Danes. Three men tried to resist, standing in a tight group with swords ready, but a Dane gave a great whoop and charged them with his horse, and his spear went through one man's mail, crushing his chest and the other two were thrown aside by the horse's weight and immediately more Danes closed on them, swords and axes rose, and the horsemen spurred on.

  A girl screamed and ran in terrified circles until a Dane, long hair flying, leaned from his saddle and pulled her dress up over her head so she was blind and half naked. She staggered in the damp grass and a half-dozen Danes laughed at her, then one slapped her bare rump with his sword and another dragged her southwards, her screams muffled by the entangling dress. Iseult was shivering and I put a mail-clad arm around her shoulders.

  I could have joined the Danes in the meadow. I spoke their language and, with my long hair and my arm rings, I looked like a Dane. But Haesten was somewhere in Cippanhamm and he might betray me, and Guthrum had no great love for me, and even if I survived then it would go hard with Leofric and Iseult. These Danes were in a rampant mood, flushed by their easy success and if a dozen decided they wanted Iseult then they would take her whether they thought I was a Dane or not. They were hunting in packs and so it was best to stay hidden until the frenzy had passed. Across the river, at the top of the low hill on which Cippanhamm was built, I could see the town's largest church burning. The thatched roof was whirling into the sky in great ribbons of flame and plumes of spark-riddled smoke.

  'What in God's name were you doing back there?' Leofric asked me.

  'Back there?' his question confused me.

  'Dancing around Steapa like a gnat! He could have endured that all day!'

  'I wounded him,' I said, 'twice.'

  'Wounded him? Sweet Christ, he's hurt himself worse when he was shaving!'

  'Doesn't matter now, does it?' I said. I guessed Steapa was dead by now. Or perhaps he had escaped. I did not know. None of us knew what was happening except that the Danes had come. And Mildrith? My son? They were far away, and presumably they would receive warning of the Danish attack, but I had no doubt that the Danes would keep going deep into Wessex and there was nothing I could do to protect Oxton. I had no horse, no men, and no chance of reaching the south coast before Guthrum's mounted soldiers.

  I watched a Dane ride past with a girl across his saddle. 'What happened to that Danish girl you took home?' I asked Leofric, 'the one we captured off Wales?'

  'She's still in Hamtun,' he said, 'and now that I'm not there she's probably in someone else's bed.'

  'Probably? Certainly.'

  'Then the bastard's welcome to her,' he said. 'She cries a lot.’

  'Mildrith does that,' I said and then, after a pause, 'Eanflaed was angry with you.'

  'Eanflaed? Angry with me! Why?'

  'Because you didn't go to see her.'

  'How could I? I was in chains.' He looked satisfied that the whore had asked after him. 'Eanflaed doesn't cry, does she?'

  'Not that I've seen.'

  'Good girl that. I reckon she'd like Hamtun.'

  If Hamtun still existed. Had a Danish fleet come from Lundene? Was Svein attacking across the Saefern Sea? I knew nothing except that Wessex was suffering chaos and defeat. It began to rain again, a thin winter's rain, cold and stinging. Iseult crouched lower and I sheltered her with my shield. Most of the folk who had gathered to watch the fight by the river had fled south and only a handful had come our way, which meant there were fewer Danes near our hiding place, and those that were in the northern river meadows were now gathering their spoils. They stripped corpses of weapons, belts, mail, clothes, anything of value. A few Saxon men had survived, but they were being led away with the children and younger women to be sold as slaves. The old were killed. A wounded man was crawling on hands and knees and a dozen Danes tormented him like cats playing with an injured sparrow, nicking him with swords and spears, bleeding him to a slow death. Haesten was one of the tormentors.

  'I always liked Haesten,' I said sadly.

  'He's a Dane,' Leofric said scornfully.

  'I still liked him.'

  'You kept him alive,' Leofric said, 'and now he's gone back to his own. You should have killed him.'

  I watched as Haesten kicked the wounded man who called out in agony, begging to be killed, but the group of young men went on jabbing him, laughing, and the first ravens came. I have often wondered if ravens smell blood, for the sky can be clear of them all day, but when a man dies they come from nowhere on their shining black wings. Perhaps Odin sends them, for the ravens are his birds, and now they flapped down to start feasting on eyes and lips, the first course of every raven feast. The d
ogs and foxes would soon follow.

  'The end of Wessex,' Leofric said sadly.

  'The end of England,' I said.

  'What do we do?' Iseult asked.

  There was no answer from me. Ragnar must be dead, which meant I had no refuge among the Danes, and Alfred was probably dead or else a fugitive, and my duty now was to my son. He was only a baby, but he was my son and he carried my name. Bebbanburg would be his if I could take it back, and if I could not take it back then it would be his duty to recapture the stronghold, and so the name Uhtred of Bebbanburg would go on till the last weltering chaos of the dying world.

  We must get to Hamtun,' Leofric said, 'find the crew.'

  Except the Danes would surely be there already? Or else on their way. They knew where the power of Wessex lay, where the great lords had their halls, where the soldiers gathered, and Guthrum would be sending men to burn and kill and so disarm the Saxons' last kingdom.

  'We need food,' I said, 'food and warmth.'

  'Light a fire here,' Leofric grumbled, 'and we're dead.'

  So we waited. The small rain turned to sleet. Haesten and his new companions, now that their victim was dead, wandered away, leaving the meadow empty but for the corpses and their attendant ravens. And still we waited, but Iseult, who was as thin as Alfred, was shivering uncontrollably and so, in the late afternoon, I took off my helmet and unbound my hair so it hung loose.

  'What are you doing?' Leofric asked.

  'For the moment,' I said, 'we're Danes. Just keep your mouth shut.'

  I led them towards the town. I would have preferred to wait until dark, but Iseult was too cold to wait longer, and I just hoped the Danes had calmed down. I might look like a Dane, but it was still dangerous. Haesten might see me, and if he told others how I had ambushed the Danish ship off Dyfed then I could expect nothing but a slow death. So we went nervously, stepping past bloodied bodies along the riverside path. The ravens protested as we approached, flapped indignantly into the winter willows, and returned to their feast when we had passed. There were more corpses piled by the bridge where the young folk captured for slavery were being made to dig a grave. The Danes guarding them were drunk and none challenged us as we went across the wooden span and under the gate arch that was still hung with holly and ivy in celebration of Christmas.

  The fires were dying now, damped by rain or else extinguished by the Danes who were ransacking houses and churches. I stayed in the narrowest alleys, edging past a smithy, a hide-dealer's shop and a place where pots had been sold. Our boots crunched through the pottery shards. A young Dane was vomiting in the alley's entrance and he told me that Guthrum was in the royal compound where there would be a feast that night. He straightened up, gasping for breath, but was sober enough to offer me a bag of coins for Iseult. There were women screaming or sobbing in houses and their noise was making Leofric angry, but I told him to stay quiet. Two of us could not free Cippanhamm, and if the world had been turned upside down and it had been a West Saxon army capturing a Danish town it would have sounded no different.

  'Alfred wouldn't allow it,' Leofric said sullenly.

  'You'd do it anyway,' I said. 'You've done it.'

  I wanted news, but none of the Danes in the street made any sense. They had come from Gleawecestre, leaving long before dawn, they had captured Cippanhamm and now they wanted to enjoy whatever the town offered. The big church had burned, but men were raking through the smoking embers looking for silver. For lack of anywhere else to go we climbed the hill to the Corncrake tavern where we always drank and found Eanflaed, the redheaded whore, being held on a table by two young Danes while three others, not one of them more than seventeen or eighteen, took turns to rape her.

  Another dozen Danes were drinking peaceably enough, taking scant notice of the rape.

  'You want her,' one-of the young men said, 'you'll have to wait.'

  'I want her now,' I said.

  'Then you can jump in the shit-pit,' he said. He was drunk. He had a wispy beard and insolent eyes. 'You can jump in the shit-pit,' he said again, evidently liking the insult, then pointed to Iseult,

  'and I'll have her while you drown.'

  I hit him, breaking his nose and spattering his face with blood, and while he gasped I kicked him hard between the legs. He went down, whimpering, and I hit a second man in the belly while Leofric loosed all his day's frustration in a savage attack on another. The two who had been holding Eanflaed turned on us and one of them squealed when Eanflaed grabbed his hair and hooked sharp fingernails into his eyes. Leofric's opponent was on the floor and he stamped on the boy's throat and I head-slapped my boy until I had him by the door, then I thumped another in the ribs, rescued Eanflaed's victim and broke his jaw, then went back to the lad who had threatened to rape Iseult. I ripped a silver loop from his ear, took off his one arm ring and stole his pouch that clinked with coins. I dropped the silver into Eanflaed's lap, then kicked the groaning man between the legs, did it again, and hauled him out into the street.

  'Go jump in a shit-pit,' I told him, then slammed the door. The other Danes, still drinking on the tavern's far side, had watched the fight with amusement, and now gave us ironic applause.

  'Bastards,' Eanflaed said, evidently talking of the men we had driven away. 'I'm sore as hell. What are you two doing here?'

  'They think we're Danes,' I said.

  'We need food,' Leofric said.

  'They've had most of it,' Eanflaed said, jerking her head at the seated Danes, 'but there might be something left in the back.' She tied her girdle. 'Edwulf's dead.' Edwulf had owned the tavern. 'And thanks for helping me, you spavined bastards!' She shouted this at the Danes, who did not understand her and just laughed at her, then she went towards the back room to find us food, but one of the men held out a hand to stop her.

  'Where are you going?' he asked her in Danish.

  'She's going past you,' I called.

  'I want ale,' he said, 'and you? Who are you?'

  'I'm the man who's going to cut your throat if you stop her fetching food,' I said.

  'Quiet, quiet!' an older man said, then frowned at me. 'Don't I know you?'

  'I was with Guthrum at Readingum,' I said, 'and at Werham.'

  'That must be it. He's done better this time, eh?'

  'He's done better,' I agreed.

  The man pointed at Iseult. 'Yours?'

  'Not for sale.'

  'Just asking, friend, just asking.'

  Eanflaed brought us stale bread, cold pork, wrinkled apples and a rock-hard cheese in which red worms writhed. The older man carried a pot of ale to our table, evidently as a peace offering, and he sat and talked with me and I learned a little more of what was happening. Guthrum had brought close to three thousand men to attack Cippanhamm. Guthrum himself was now in Alfred's hall and half his men would stay in Cippanhamm as a garrison while the rest planned to ride either south or west in the morning.

  'Keep the bastards on the run, eh?' the man said, then frowned at Leofric. 'He doesn't say much.'

  'He's dumb,' I said.

  'I knew a man who had a dumb wife. He was ever so happy.'

  He looked jealously at my arm rings. 'So who do you serve?'

  'Svein of the White Horse.'

  'Svein? He wasn't at Readingum. Or at Werham.'

  'He was in Dyflin,' I said, 'but I was with Ragnar the Older then.'

  'Ah, Ragnar! Poor bastard.'

  'I suppose his son's dead now?' I asked.

  'What else?' the man said. 'Hostages, poor bastards.' He thought for a heartbeat then frowned again. 'What's Svein doing here? I thought he was coming by ship?'

  'He is,' I said. 'We're just here to talk to Guthrum.'

  'Svein sends a dumb man to talk to Guthrum?'

  'He sent me to talk,' I said, 'and sent him,' I jerked a thumb at the glowering Leofric, 'to kill people who ask too many questions.'

  'All right, all right!’ The man held up a hand to ward off my belligerence.

  We slept in t
he stable loft, warmed by straw, and we left before dawn, and at that moment fifty West Saxons could have retaken Cippanhamm for the Danes were drunk, sleeping, and oblivious to the world. Leofric stole a sword, axe and shield from a man snoring in the tavern, then we walked unchallenged out of the western gate. In a field outside we found over a hundred horses, guarded by two men sleeping in a thatched hut, and we could have taken all the beasts, but we had no saddles or bridles and so, reluctantly, I knew we must walk. There were four of us now, because Eanflaed had decided to come with us. She had swathed Iseult in two big cloaks, but the British girl was still shivering.

  We walked west and south along a road that twisted through small hills. We were heading for Babum, and from there I could strike south towards Defnascir and my son, but it was clear the Danes were already ahead of us. Some must have ridden this way the previous day for in the first village we reached there were no cocks crowing, no sound at all, and what I had taken for a morning mist was smoke from burned cottages. Heavier smoke showed ahead, suggesting the Danes might already have reached Babum, a town they knew well for they had negotiated one of their truces there. Then, that afternoon, a horde of mounted Danes appeared on the road behind us and we were driven west into the hills to find a hiding place.