The Pale Horseman s-2

by Bernard Cornwell

  'She told me,' I said shortly.

  'And you don't approve? Just think of it as a good wash, then maybe you won't mind so much.'

  I was not in Æthelingaeg for Iseult's baptism, nor did I wish to be, for I knew Easter with Alfred would be nothing but prayers and psalms and priests and sermons. Instead I took Steapa and fifty men up into the hills, going towards Cippanhamm, for Alfred had ordered that the Danes were to be harried mercilessly in the next few weeks. He had decided to assemble the fyrd of Wessex close to Ascension Day, which was just six weeks away, and those were the weeks in which Guthrum would be hoping to revive his hungry horses on the spring grass, and so we rode to ambush Danish forage parties. Kill one forage party and the next must be protected by a hundred extra horsemen, and that wearies the horses even more and so requires still more forage. It worked for a while, but then Guthrum began sending his foragers north into Mercia where they were not opposed.

  It was a time of waiting. There were two smiths in Æthelingaeg now and, though neither had all the equipment they wanted, and though fuel for their furnaces was scarce, they were making good spear points. One of my jobs was to take men to cut ash poles for the spear shafts.

  Alfred was writing letters, trying to discover how many men the shires could bring to battle, and he sent priests to Frankia to persuade the thegns who had fled there to return. More spies came from Cippanhamm confirming that Svein had joined Guthrum, and that Guthrum was strengthening his horses and raising men from the Danish parts of England. He was ordering his West Saxon allies like Wulfhere to arm their men, and warning his garrisons in Wintanceaster, Readingum and Badum that they must be ready to abandon their ramparts and march to his aid. Guthrum had his own spies and must have known Alfred was planning to assemble an army, and I dare say he welcomed that news for such an army would be Alfred's last hope and, should Guthrum destroy the fyrd, Wessex would fall never to rise again.

  Æthelingaeg seethed with rumour. Guthrum, it was said, had five thousand men. Ships had come from Denmark and a new army of Norsemen had sailed from Ireland. The Britons were marching. The fyrd of Mercia was on Guthrum's side, and it was said the Danes had set up a great camp at Cracgelad on the River Temes where thousands of Mercian troops, both Danish and Saxon, were assembling. The tumours of Guthrum's strength crossed the sea and Wilfrith of Hamptonscir wrote from Frankia begging Alfred to flee Wessex.

  'Take ship to this coast,' he wrote, 'and save your family.'

  Leofric rarely rode on patrols with us, but stayed in Æthelingaeg for he had been named commander of the king's bodyguard. He was proud of that, as he should have been, for he had been peasant-born and he could neither read nor write, and Alfred usually insisted that his commanders were literate. Eanflaed's influence was behind the appointment, for she had become a confidante of Ælswith. Alfred's wife went nowhere without Eanflaed, even in church the one-time whore sat just behind Ælswith, and when Alfred held court, Eanflaed was always there.

  'The queen doesn't like you,' Eanflaed told me one rare day when I found her alone.

  'She's not a queen,' I said. 'Wessex doesn't have queens.'

  'She should he a queen,' she said resentfully, 'it would be right and proper.' She was carrying a heap of plants and I noticed her forearms were a pale green. 'Dyeing,' she explained brusquely, and I followed her to where a great cauldron was bubbling on a fire. She threw in the plants and began stirring the mess in the pot. 'We're making green linen,' she said.

  'Green linen?'

  'Alfred must have a banner,' she said indignantly. 'He can't fight without a banner.' The women were making two banners. One was the great green dragon flag of Wessex, while the other bore the cross of Christianity.

  'Your Iseult's working on the cross,' Eanflaed told me.

  'I know.'

  'You should have been at her baptism.'

  'I was killing Danes.'

  'But I'm glad she's baptised. Come to her senses, she has.'

  In truth, I thought, Iseult had been battered into Christianity. For weeks she had endured the rancour of Alfred's churchmen, had been accused of witchcraft and of being the devil's instrument, and it had worn her down. Then came Hild with her gentler Christianity, and Pyrlig who spoke of God in Iseult's tongue, and Iseult had been persuaded. That meant I was the only pagan left in the swamp and Eanflaed glanced pointedly at my hammer amulet. She said nothing of it, instead asking me whether I truly believed we could defeat the Danes.

  'Yes,' I said confidently, though of course I did not know.

  'How many men will Guthrum have?'

  I knew the questions were not Eanflaed's, but Ælswith's. Alfred's wife wanted to know if her husband had any chance of survival or whether they should take the ship we had captured from Svein and sail to Frankia.

  'Guthrum will lead four thousand men,' I said, 'at least.'

  'At least?'

  'Depends how many come from Mercia,' I said, then thought for a heartbeat, 'but I expect four thousand.'

  'And Wessex?'

  'The same,' I said. I was lying. With enormous luck we could assemble three thousand, but I doubted it. Two thousand? Not likely, but possible. My real fear was that Alfred would raise his banner and no one would come, or that only a few hundred men would arrive. We could lead three hundred from Æthelingaeg, but what could three hundred do against Guthrum's great army?

  Alfred also worried about numbers, and he sent me to Hamptonscir to discover how much of the shire was occupied by the Danes. I found them well entrenched in the north, but the south of the shire was free of them and in Hamtun, where Alfred's fleet was based, the warships were still drawn up on the beach. Burgweard, the fleet's commander, had over a hundred men in the town, all that was left of his crews, and he had them manning the palisade. He claimed he could not leave Hamtun for fear that the Danes would attack and capture the ships, but I had Alfred's scrap of parchment with his dragon seal on it, and I used it to order him to keep thirty men to protect the ships and bring the rest to Alfred.

  'When?' he asked gloomily.

  'When you're summoned,' I said, 'but it will be soon. And you're to raise the local fyrd too. Bring them.'

  'And if the Danes come here?' he asked, 'if they come by sea?'

  'Then we lose the fleet,' I said, 'and we build another.'

  His fear was real enough. Danish ships were off the south coast again. For the moment, rather than attempt an invasion, they were being Vikings. They landed, raided, raped, burned, stole and went to sea again, but they were numerous enough for Alfred to worry that a whole army might land somewhere on the coast and march against him. We were harassed by that fear and by the knowledge that we were few and the enemy numerous, and that the enemy's horses were fattening on the new grass.

  'Ascension Day,' Alfred announced on the day I returned from Hamtun.

  That was the day we should be ready in Æthelingaeg, and on the Sunday after, which was the Feast of Saint Monica, we would gather the fyrd, if there was a fyrd. Reports said the Danes were readying to march and it was plain they would launch their attack south towards Wintanceaster, the town that was the capital of Wessex, and to protect it, to bar Guthrum's road south, the fyrd would gather at Egbert's Stone. I had never heard of the place, but Leofric assured me it was an important spot, the place where King Egbert, Alfred's grandfather, had given judgements.

  'It isn't one stone,' he said, 'but three.'

  'Three?'

  'Two big pillars and another boulder on top. The giants made it in the old days.'

  And so the summons was issued. Bring every man, the parchments instructed, bring every weapon and say your prayers, for what is left of Wessex will meet at Egbert's Stone to carry battle to the Danes, and no sooner was the summons sent than disaster struck. It came just a week before the fyrd was to gather.

  Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsaeta, wrote that forty Danish ships were off his coast, and that he dared not lead the fyrd away from their threat. Worse, because the Danes were so num
erous, he had begged Harald of Defnascir to lend him men.

  That letter almost destroyed Alfred's spirits. He had clung to his dream of surprising Guthrum by raising an unexpectedly powerful army, but all his hopes were now shredding away. He had always been thin, but suddenly he looked haggard and he spent hours in the church, wrestling with God, unable to understand why the Almighty had so suddenly turned against him. And two days after the news of the Danish fleet, Svein of the White Horse led three hundred mounted men in a raid against the hills on the edge of the swamp and, because scores of men from the Sumorsaete fyrd had gathered in Æthelingaeg, Svein discovered and stole their horses. We had neither the room nor the forage to keep many horses in Æthelingaeg itself, and so they were pastured beyond the causeway, and I watched from the fort as Svein, riding a white horse and wearing his white-plumed helmet and white cloak, rounded up the beasts and drove them away. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I had twenty men in the fort and Svein was leading hundreds.

  'Why were the horses not guarded?' Alfred wanted to know.

  'They were,' Wiglaf, Ealdorman of Sumorsaete, said, 'and the guards died.' He saw Alfred's anger, but not his despair. 'We haven't seen a Dane here for weeks!' he pleaded, 'how were we to know they'd come in force?'

  'How many men died?'

  'Only twelve.'

  'Only?' Alfred asked, wincing, 'and how many horses lost?'

  'Sixty-three.'

  On the night before Ascension Day Alfred walked beside the river. Beocca, faithful as a hound, followed him at a distance, wanting to offer the king God's reassurance, but instead Alfred called to me.

  There was a moon, and its light shadowed his cheeks and made his pale eyes look almost white.

  'How many men will we have?' he asked abruptly.

  I did not need to think about the answer. 'Two thousand.'

  He nodded. He knew that number as well as I did.

  'Maybe a few more,' I suggested.

  He grunted at that. We would lead three hundred and fifty men from Æthelingaeg and Wiglaf, Ealdorman of Sumorsaete, had promised a thousand, though in truth I doubted if that many would come. The fyrd of Wiltunscir had been weakened by Wulfhere's defection, but the southern part of the shire should yield five hundred men, and we could expect some from Hamptonscir, but beyond that we would depend on whatever few men made it past the Danish garrisons that now ringed the heartland of Wessex. If Defnascir and Thornsaeta had sent their fyrds then we would have numbered closer to four thousand, but they were not coming.

  'And Guthrum?' Alfred asked, 'how many will he have?’

  'Four thousand.'

  'More like five,' Alfred said. He stared at the river that was running low between the muddy banks.

  The water rippled about the wicker fish traps. 'So should we fight?'

  ‘What choice do we have?'

  He smiled at that. 'We have a choice, Uhtred,' he assured me. 'We can run away. We can go to Frankia. I could become a king in exile and pray that God brings me back.'

  ‘You think God will?'

  ‘No,' he admitted. If he ran away then he knew he would die in exile.

  'So we fight,' I said.

  'And on my conscience,' he said, 'I will for ever bear the weight of all those men who died in a hopeless cause. Two thousand against five thousand? How can 1 justify leading so few against so many?'

  'You know how.'

  'So I can be king?'

  'So that we are not slaves in our own land,' I said.

  He pondered that for a while. An owl flew low overhead, a sudden surprise of white feathers and the rush of air across stubby wings. It was an omen, I knew, but of what kind?

  'Perhaps we are being punished,' Alfred said.

  'For what?'

  'For taking the land from the Britons?'

  That seemed nonsense to me. If Alfred's god wanted to punish him for his ancestors having taken the land from the Britons, then why send the Danes? Why not send the Britons? God could resurrect Arthur and let his people have their revenge, but why send a new people to take the land?

  'Do you want Wessex or not?' I asked harshly.

  He said nothing for a while, then gave a sad smile. 'In my conscience,' he said, 'I can find no hope for this fight, but as a Christian I must believe we can win it. God will not let us lose.'

  'Nor will this,' I said, and I slapped Serpent-Breath's hilt.

  'So simple?' he asked.

  'Life is simple,' I said. 'Ale, women, sword and reputation. Nothing else matters.'

  He shook his head and I knew he was thinking about God and prayer and duty, but he did not argue.

  'So if you were I, Uhtred,' he said, 'would you march?'

  'You've already made up your mind, lord,' I said, 'so why ask me?'

  He nodded. A dog barked in the village and he turned to stare at the cottages and the hall and the church he had made with its tall alder cross.

  'Tomorrow,' he said, you will take a hundred horsemen and patrol ahead of the army.'

  'Yes, lord.'

  'And when we meet the enemy,' he went on, still staring at the cross, 'you will choose fifty or sixty men from the bodyguard. The best you can find. And you will guard my banners.'

  He did not say more, but nor did he need to. What he meant was that I was to take the best warriors, the most savage men, the dangerous warriors who loved battle, and I was to lead them in the place where the fight would be hardest, for an enemy loves to capture his foe's banners. It was an honour to be asked and, if the battle was lost, an almost certain death sentence.

  'I shall do it gladly, lord,' I said, 'but ask a favour of you in return.'

  'If I can,' he said guardedly.

  'If you can,' I said, 'don't bury me. Burn my body on a pyre, and put a sword in my hand.'

  He hesitated, then nodded, knowing he had agreed to a pagan funeral. 'I never told you,' he said,

  'that I am sorry about your son.'

  'So am I, lord.'

  'But he is with God, Uhtred, he is assuredly with God.'

  'So I'm told, lord, so I'm told.'

  And next day we marched. Fate is inexorable, and though numbers and reason told us we could not win, we dared not lose and so we marched to Egbert's Stone.

  We marched with ceremony. Twenty-three priests and eighteen monks formed our vanguard and chanted a psalm as they led Alfred's forces away from the fort guarding the southern trackway and east towards the heartland of Wessex.

  They chanted in Latin so the words meant nothing to me, but Father Pyrlig had been given use of one of Alfred's horses and, dressed in a leather coat and with a great sword strapped to his side and with a stout-shafted hoar spear on one shoulder, he rode alongside me and translated the words.

  "'God,"' he said, '"you have abandoned me, you have scattered us, you are angry with us, now turn to us again." That sounds a reasonable request, doesn't it? You've kicked us in the face, so now give us a cuddle, eh?'

  'It really means that?'

  'Not the bit about kicks and cuddles. That was me.' He grinned at me. 'I do miss war. Isn't that a sin?'

  'You've seen war?'

  'Seen it? I was a warrior before I joined the church! Pyrlig the Fearless, they called me. I killed four Saxons in a day once. All by myself and I had nothing but a spear. And they had swords and shields, they did. Back home they made a song about me, but mind you, the Britons will sing about anything. I can sing you the song, if you like? It tells how I slaughtered three hundred and ninety-four Saxons in one day, but it's not entirely accurate.'

  'So how many did you kill?'

  'I told you. Four.' He laughed.

  'So how did you learn English?'

  'My mother was a Saxon, poor thing. She was taken in a raid on Mercia and became a slave.'

  'So why did you stop being a warrior?'

  'Because I found God, Uhtred. Or God found me. And I was becoming too proud. Songs about yourself go to your head and I was wickedly proud of myself, and pride is a t
errible thing.'