Sword Song

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Guthrum,” Sihtric said.

  “Guthrum!” Sigefrid shouted, and kicked the old man again. Guthrum, when he made peace with Alfred, had become a Christian and taken the Christian name Æthelstan as his own. I still thought of him as Guthrum, as did Sigefrid, who now appeared to be trying to stamp Sihtric to death. The old man attempted to evade the blows, but Sigefrid had driven him to the ground from where he could not escape. Erik seemed unmoved by his brother’s savage anger, yet after a while he stepped forward and took Sigefrid’s arm and the bigger man allowed himself to be pulled away. “Bastard!” Sigefrid spat back at the moaning man. “Calling Guthrum by a Christian name!” he explained to me. Sigefrid was still shaking from his sudden anger. His eyes had narrowed and his face was contorted, but he seemed to control himself as he draped a heavy arm around my shoulder. “Guthrum sent them,” he said, “to tell me to leave Lundene. But it’s none of Guthrum’s business! Lundene doesn’t belong to East Anglia! It belongs to Mercia! To King Uhtred of Mercia!” That was the first time anyone had used that title so formally, and I liked the sound of it. King Uhtred. Sigefrid turned back to Sihtric who now had blood at his lips. “What was Guthrum’s message?”

  “That the city belongs to Mercia, and you must leave,” Sihtric managed to say.

  “Then Mercia can throw me out,” Sigefrid sneered.

  “Unless King Uhtred allows us to stay?” Erik suggested with a smile.

  I said nothing. The title sounded good, but strange, as if it defied the strands coming from the three spinners.

  “Alfred will not permit you to stay.” One of the other prisoners dared to speak.

  “Who gives a turd about Alfred?” Sigefrid snarled. “Let the bastard send his army to die here.”

  “That is your reply, lord?” the prisoner asked humbly.

  “My reply will be your severed heads,” Sigefrid said.

  I glanced at Erik then. He was the younger brother, but clearly the one who did the thinking. He shrugged. “If we negotiate,” he explained, “then we give time for our enemies to gather their forces. Better to be defiant.”

  “You’ll pick war with both Guthrum and Alfred?” I asked.

  “Guthrum won’t fight,” Erik said, sounding very certain. “He threatens, but he won’t fight. He’s getting old, Lord Uhtred, and he would prefer to enjoy what life is left to him. And if we send him severed heads? I think he will understand the message that his own head is in danger if he disturbs us.”

  “What of Alfred?” I asked.

  “He’s cautious,” Erik said, “isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll offer us money to leave the city?”

  “Probably.”

  “And maybe we’ll take it,” Sigefrid said, “and stay anyway.”

  “Alfred won’t attack us till the summer,” Erik said, ignoring his brother, “and by then, Lord Uhtred, we hope you will have led Earl Ragnar south into East Anglia. Alfred can’t ignore that threat. He will march against our combined armies, not against the garrison in Lundene, and our job is to kill Alfred and put his nephew on the throne.”

  “Æthelwold?” I asked dubiously. “He’s a drunk.”

  “Drunk or not,” Erik said, “a Saxon king will make our conquest of Wessex more palatable.”

  “Until you need him no longer,” I said.

  “Until we need him no longer,” Erik agreed.

  The big-bellied priest at the end of the line of kneeling prisoners had been listening. He stared at me, then at Sigefrid, who saw his gaze. “What are you looking at, turd?” Sigefrid demanded. The priest did not answer, but just looked at me again, then dropped his head. “We’ll start with him,” Sigefrid said, “we’ll nail the fat bastard to a cross and see if he dies.”

  “Why not let him fight?” I suggested.

  Sigefrid stared at me, unsure he had heard me correctly. “Let him fight?” he asked.

  “The other priest is skinny,” I said, “so much easier to nail to the cross. That fat one should be given a sword and made to fight.”

  Sigefrid sneered. “You think a priest can fight?”

  I shrugged as though I did not care one way or the other. “It’s just that I like seeing those fat-bellied ones lose a fight,” I explained. “I like seeing their bellies slit open. I like watching their guts spill out.” I was staring at the priest as I spoke and he looked up again to gaze into my eyes. “I want to see yards of gut spilled out,” I said wolfishly, “and then watch as your dogs eat his intestines while he’s still alive.”

  “Or make him eat them himself,” Sigefrid said thoughtfully. He suddenly grinned at me. “I like you, Lord Uhtred!”

  “He’ll die too easily,” Erik said.

  “Then give him something to fight for,” I said.

  “What can that fat pig of a priest fight for?” Sigefrid demanded scornfully.

  I said nothing, and it was Erik who supplied the answer. “His freedom?” he suggested. “If he wins then all prisoners go free, but if he loses then we crucify them all. That should make him fight.”

  “He’ll still lose,” I said.

  “Yes, but he’ll make an effort,” Erik said.

  Sigefrid laughed, amused by the incongruity of the suggestion. The priest, half naked, big-bellied and terrified, looked at each of us in turn but saw nothing but amusement and ferocity. “Ever held a sword, priest?” Sigefrid demanded of the fat man. The priest said nothing.

  I mocked his silence with laughter. “He’ll only flail around like a pig,” I said.

  “You want to fight him?” Sigefrid asked.

  “He wasn’t sent as an envoy to me, lord,” I said respectfully. “Besides, I’ve heard there is no one to match your skill with a blade. I challenge you to make a cut straight across his belly button.”

  Sigefrid liked that challenge. He turned to the priest. “Holy man! You want to fight for your freedom?”

  The priest was shaking with fear. He glanced at his companions, but found no help there. He managed to nod his head. “Yes, lord,” he said, “Then you can fight me,” Sigefrid said happily, “and if I win? You all die. And if you win? You can ride away from here. Can you fight?”

  “No, lord,” the priest said.

  “Ever held a sword, priest?”

  “No, lord.”

  “So are you ready to die?” Sigefrid asked.

  The priest looked at the Norseman and, despite his bruises and cuts, there was a hint of anger in his eyes that was belied by the humility in his voice. “Yes, lord,” he said, “I’m ready to die and meet my Savior.”

  “Cut him free,” Sigefrid ordered one of his followers. “Cut the turd free and give him a sword.” He drew his own sword that was a long two-edged blade. “Fear-Giver,” he named the blade with fondness in his voice, “and she needs exercise.”

  “Here,” I said, and I drew Serpent-Breath, my own beautiful blade, and I turned her so that I held her by the blade and I tossed the sword to the priest whose hands had just been cut free. He fumbled the catch, letting Serpent-Breath fall among the pale winter weeds. He stared at the sword for a moment as though he had never seen such a thing before, then stooped to pick her up. He was unsure whether to hold her in his right hand or left. He settled for the left and gave her a clumsy experimental stroke that caused the watching men to laugh.

  “Why give him your sword?” Sigefrid asked.

  “He’ll do no good with it,” I said scornfully.

  “And if I break it?” Sigefrid asked forcefully.

  “Then I’ll know the smith who made it didn’t know his business,” I said.

  “It’s your blade, your choice,” Sigefrid said dismissively, then turned to the priest who was holding Serpent-Breath so that her tip rested on the ground. “Are you ready, priest?” he demanded.

  “Yes, lord,” the priest said, and that was the first truthful answer he had given to the Norseman. For the priest had held a sword many times before and he did know how to fight and I doubted
he was ready to die. He was Father Pyrlig.

  If your fields are heavy and damp with clay then you can harness two oxen to an ard blade, and you can goad the beasts bloody so that the blade plows your ground. The beasts must pull together, which is why they are yoked together, and in life one ox is called Fate and the other is named Oaths.

  Fate decrees what we do. We cannot escape fate. Wyrd bi? ful ãræd. We have no choices in life, how can we? Because from the moment we are born the three sisters know where our thread will go and what patterns it will weave and how it will end. Wyrd bi? ful ãræd.

  Yet we choose our oaths. Alfred, when he gave me his sword and hands to enfold in my hands did not order me to make the oath. He offered it and I chose. But was it my choice? Or did the Fates choose for me? And if they did, why bother with oaths? I have often wondered about this and even now, as an old man, I still wonder. Did I choose Alfred? Or were the Fates laughing when I knelt and took his sword and hands in mine?

  The three Norns were certainly laughing on that cold bright day in Lundene, because the moment I saw that the big-bellied priest was Father Pyrlig I knew that nothing was simple. I had realized in that instant that the Fates had not spun me a golden thread leading to a throne. They were laughing from the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. They had made a jest and I was its victim, and I had to make a choice.

  Or did I? Maybe the Fates had made the choice, but at that moment, overshadowed by the gaunt stark makeshift cross, I believed I had to choose between the Thurgilson brothers and Pyrlig.

  Sigefrid was no friend, but he was a formidable man, and with his alliance I could become king in Mercia. Gisela would be a queen. I could help Sigefrid, Erik, Haesten, and Ragnar plunder Wessex. I could become rich. I would lead armies. I would fly my banner of the wolf’s head, and at Smoca’s heels would ride a mailed host of spearmen. My enemies would hear the thunder of our hooves in their nightmares. All that would be mine if I chose to ally myself with Sigefrid.

  While by choosing Pyrlig I would lose all that the dead man had promised me. Which meant that Bjorn had lied, yet how could a man sent from his grave with a message from the Norns tell a lie? I remember thinking all that in the heartbeat before I made my choice, though in truth there was no hesitation. There was not even a heartbeat of hesitation.

  Pyrlig was a Welshman, a Briton, and we Saxons hate the Britons. The Britons are treacherous thieves. They hide in their hill fastnesses and ride down to raid our lands, and they take our cattle and sometimes our women and children, and when we pursue them they go ever deeper into a wild place of mists, crags, marsh, and misery. And Pyrlig was also a Christian, and I have no love for Christians. The choice would seem so easy! On one side a kingdom, Viking friends and wealth, and on the other a Briton who was the priest of a religion that sucks joy from this world like dusk swallowing daylight. Yet I did not think. I chose, or fate chose, and I chose friendship. Pyrlig was my friend. I had met him in Wessex’s darkest winter, when the Danes seemed to have conquered the kingdom, and Alfred with a few followers had been driven to take refuge in the western marshes. Pyrlig had been sent as an emissary by his Welsh king to discover and perhaps exploit Alfred’s weakness, but instead he had sided with Alfred and fought for Alfred. Pyrlig and I had stood in the shield wall together. We had fought side by side. We were Welshman and Saxon, Christian and pagan, and we should have been enemies, but I loved him like a brother.

  So I gave him my sword and, instead of watching him nailed to a cross, I gave him the chance to fight for his life.

  And, of course, it was not a fair fight. It was over in a moment! Indeed, it had hardly begun before it ended, and I alone was not astonished by its ending.

  Sigefrid was expecting to face a fat, untrained priest, yet I knew that Pyrlig had been a warrior before he discovered his god. He had been a great warrior, a killer of Saxons and a man about whom his people had made songs. He did not look like a great warrior now. He was half naked, fat, disheveled, bruised, and beaten. He waited for Sigefrid’s attack with a look of horrified terror on his face and with the tip of Serpent-Breath’s blade still resting on the ground. He backed away as Sigefrid came closer, and began making mewing noises. Sigefrid laughed and swung his sword almost idly, expecting to knock Pyrlig’s blade out of his path and so expose that big belly to Fear-Giver’s gut-opening slash.

  And Pyrlig moved like a weasel.

  He lifted Serpent-Breath gracefully and danced a backward pace so that Sigefrid’s careless swing went under her blade, and then he stepped toward his enemy and brought Serpent-Breath down hard, all wrist in that stroke, and sliced her against Sigefrid’s sword arm as it was still swinging outward. The stroke was not powerful enough to break the mail armor, but it did drive Sigefrid’s sword arm further out and so opened the Norseman to a lunge. And Pyrlig lunged. He was so fast that Serpent-Breath was a silver blur that struck hard on Sigefrid’s chest.

  Once again the blade did not pierce Sigefrid’s mail. Instead it pushed the big man backward and I saw the fury come into the Norseman’s eyes and saw him bring Fear-Giver back in a mighty swing that would surely have decapitated Pyrlig in a red instant. There was so much strength and savagery in that huge cut, but Pyrlig, who seemed a heartbeat from death, simply used his wrist again. He did not seem to move, but still Serpent-Breath flickered up and sideways.

  Serpent-Breath’s point met that death-swing on the inside of Sigefrid’s wrist and I saw the spray of blood like a red fog in the air.

  And I saw Pyrlig smile. It was more of a grimace, but there was a warrior’s pride and a warrior’s triumph in that smile. His blade had ripped up Sigefrid’s forearm, slicing the mail apart and laying open flesh and skin and muscle from wrist to elbow, so that Sigefrid’s mighty blow faltered and stopped. The Norseman’s sword arm went limp, and Pyrlig suddenly stepped back and turned Serpent-Breath so he could cut downward with her and at last he appeared to put some effort into the blade. She made a whistling noise as the Welshman slashed her onto Sigefrid’s bleeding wrist. He almost severed the wrist, but the blade glanced off a bone and took the Norseman’s thumb instead, and Fear-Giver fell to the arena floor and Serpent-Breath was in Sigefrid’s beard and at his throat.

  “No!” I shouted.

  Sigefrid was too appalled to be angry. He could not believe what had happened. He must have realized by that moment that his opponent was a swordsman, but still he could not believe he had lost. He brought up his bleeding hands as if to seize Pyrlig’s blade, and I saw the Welshman’s blade twitch and Sigefrid, sensing death a hair’s breadth away, went still.

  “No,” I repeated.

  “Why shouldn’t I kill him?” Pyrlig asked, and his voice was a warrior’s voice now, hard and merciless, and his eyes were warrior’s eyes, flint-cold and furious.

  “No,” I said again. I knew that if Pyrlig killed Sigefrid then Sigefrid’s men would have their revenge.

  Erik knew it too. “You won, priest,” he said softly. He walked to his brother. “You won,” he said again to Pyrlig, “so put down the sword.”

  “Does he know I beat him?” Pyrlig asked, staring into Sigefrid’s dark eyes.

  “I speak for him,” Erik said. “You won the fight, priest, and you are free.”

  “I have to deliver my message first,” Pyrlig said. Blood dripped from Sigefrid’s hand. He still stared at the Welshman. “The message we bring from King Æthelstan,” Pyrlig said, meaning Guthrum, “is that you are to leave Lundene. It is not part of the land ceded by Alfred to Danish rule. Do you understand that?” He twitched Serpent-Breath again, though Sigefrid said nothing. “Now I want horses,” Pyrlig went on, “and Lord Uhtred and his men are to escort us out of Lundene. Is that agreed?”

  Erik looked at me and I nodded consent. “It is agreed,” Erik said to Pyrlig.

  I took Serpent-Breath from Pyrlig’s hand. Erik was holding his brother’s wounded arm. For a moment I thought Sigefrid would attack the unarmed Welshman, but Erik managed to turn him away.


  Horses were fetched. The men in the arena were silent and resentful. They had seen their leader humiliated, and they did not understand why Pyrlig was allowed to leave with the other envoys, but they accepted Erik’s decision.

  “My brother is headstrong,” Erik told me. He had taken me aside to talk while the horses were saddled.

  “It seems the priest knew how to fight after all,” I said apologetically.

  Erik frowned, not with anger, but puzzlement. “I am curious about their god,” he admitted. He was watching his brother, whose wounds were being bandaged. “Their god does seem to have power,” Erik said. I slid Serpent-Breath into her scabbard and Erik saw the silver cross that decorated her pommel. “You must think so too?”

  “That was a gift,” I said, “from a woman. A good woman. A lover. Then the Christian god took hold of her and she loves men no more.”

  Erik reached out and touched the cross tentatively. “You don’t think it gives the blade power?” he asked.

  “The memory of her love might,” I said, “but power comes from here.” I touched my amulet, Thor’s hammer.

  “I fear their god,” Erik said.

  “He’s harsh,” I said, “unkind. He’s a god who likes to make laws.”

  “Laws?”

  “You’re not allowed to lust after your neighbor’s wife,” I said.

  Erik laughed at that, then saw I was serious. “Truly?” he asked with disbelief in his voice.

  “Priest!” I called to Pyrlig. “Does your god let men lust after their neighbors’ wives?”

  “He lets them, lord,” Pyrlig said humbly as if he feared me, “but he disapproves.”

  “Did he make a law about it?”

  “Yes, lord, he did. And he made another that says you mustn’t lust after your neighbor’s ox.”

  “There,” I said to Erik. “You can’t even wish for an ox if you’re a Christian.”

  “Strange,” he said thoughtfully. He was looking at Guthrum’s envoys who had so narrowly escaped losing their heads. “You don’t mind escorting them?”