Sword Song

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Then why do we fear death?” Erik asked in a voice that suggested he expected no answer. He turned to look at the downstream chaos. The two ships we had used to shoot the bridge’s gap had been commandeered by fleeing men, and one of those ships had foundered just yards from the wharf where it now lay on its side, half sunken. Men had been spilled into the water where many must have drowned, but others had managed to reach the muddy foreshore where they were being hacked to death by gleeful men with spears, swords, axes, and hoes. The survivors clung to the wreck, trying to shelter from a handful of Saxon bowmen whose long hunting arrows thudded into the ship’s timbers. There was so much death that morning. The streets of the broken city reeked of blood and were filled with the wailing of women beneath the smoke-smeared yellow sky. “We trusted you, Lord Uhtred,” Erik said bleakly, still staring downriver. “You were going to bring us Ragnar, you were to be king in Mercia, and you were to give us the whole island of Britain.”

  “The dead man lied,” I said. “Bjorn lied.”

  Erik turned back to me, his face grave. “I said we should not try and trick you,” he said, “but Earl Haesten insisted.” Erik shrugged, then looked at Father Pyrlig, noting his mail coat and the well-worn hilts of his swords. “But you also tricked us, Lord Uhtred,” Erik went on, “because I think you knew this man was no priest, but a warrior.”

  “He is both,” I said.

  Erik grimaced, perhaps remembering the skill with which Pyrlig had defeated his brother in the arena. “You lied,” he said sadly, “and we lied, but we still could have taken Wessex together. And now?” he turned and looked along the bridge’s roadway, “now I don’t know whether my brother will live or die.” He grimaced. Sigefrid was motionless now and for a moment I thought he might have gone to the corpse-hall already, but then he slowly turned his head to give me a baleful stare.

  “I shall pray for him,” Pyrlig said.

  “Yes,” Erik said simply, “please.”

  “And what shall I do?” I asked.

  “You?” Erik frowned, puzzled by my question.

  “Do I let you live, Erik Thurgilson?” I asked. “Or kill you?”

  “You will find us difficult to kill,” he said.

  “But kill you I will,” I responded, “if I must.” That was the real negotiation in those two sentences. The truth was that Erik and his men were trapped and doomed, but to kill them we would need to hack our way through a fearsome shield wall, and then batter down desperate men whose only thought would be to take many of us with them to the next world. I would lose twenty or more men here, and others of my household troops would be crippled for life. That was a price I did not want to pay, and Erik knew it, but he also knew that the price would be paid if he was not reasonable. “Is Haesten here?” I asked him, looking down the broken bridge.

  Erik shook his head. “I saw him leave,” he said, nodding downriver.

  “A pity,” I said, “because he broke an oath to me. If he had been here I would have let you all go in exchange for his life.”

  Erik stared at me for a few heartbeats, judging whether I had spoken the truth. “Then kill me instead of Haesten,” he said at last, “and let all these others leave.”

  “You broke no oath to me,” I said, “so you owe me no life.”

  “I want these men to live,” Erik said with a sudden passion, “and my life is a small price for theirs. I will pay it, Lord Uhtred, and in return you give my men their lives, and give them Wave-Tamer,” he pointed to his brother’s ship that was still tied in the small dock where we had landed.

  “Is it a fair price, father?” I asked Pyrlig.

  “Who can set a value on life?” Pyrlig asked in return.

  “I can,” I said harshly, and turned back to Erik. “The price is this,” I told him. “You will leave every weapon you carry on this bridge. You will leave your shields. You will leave your mail coats, and you will leave your helmets. You will leave your arm rings, your chains, your brooches, your coins, and your belt buckles. You will leave everything of value, Erik Thurgilson, and then you may take a ship that I choose to give you, and you may go.”

  “A ship that you choose,” Erik said.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled wanly. “I made Wave-Tamer for my brother,” he said. “I first found her keel in the forest. It was an oak with a trunk straight as an oar shaft and I cut that myself. We used eleven other oaks, Lord Uhtred, for her ribs and her cross-pieces, for her stem and her planking. Her caulking was hair from seven bears I killed with my own spear, and I made her nails on my own forge. My mother made her sail, I wove her lines, and I gave her to Thor by killing a horse I loved and sprinkling his blood on her stem. She has carried my brother and me through storms and fog and ice. She is,” he turned to look at Wave-Tamer, “she is beautiful. I love that ship.”

  “You love her more than your life?”

  He thought for an instant, then shook his head. “No.”

  “Then it will be a ship of my choice,” I said stubbornly, and that might have ended the negotiation except there was a commotion under the archway where the Northmen’s shield wall still faced my troops.

  Æthelred had come to the bridge, and was demanding to be allowed through the gate. Erik offered me a quizzical look when the news was brought to us and I shrugged. “He commands here,” I said.

  “So I will need his permission to leave?”

  “You will,” I said.

  Erik sent word that the shield wall was to let Æthelred onto the roadway and my cousin strutted onto the bridge with his customary cockiness. Aldhelm, the commander of his guard, was his only companion. Æthelred ignored Erik, instead facing me with a belligerent expression. “You presume to negotiate on my behalf?” he accused me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Negotiating on my own behalf,” I said. “This is the Earl Erik Thurgilson,” I introduced the Norseman in English, but now changed to Danish. “And this,” I said to Erik, “is the Ealdorman of Mercia, the Lord Æthelred.”

  Erik responded to the introduction by offering Æthelred a small bow, but the courtesy was wasted. Æthelred looked around the bridge, counting the men who had taken refuge there. “Not so many,” he said brusquely. “They must all die.”

  “I have already offered them their lives,” I said.

  Æthelred rounded on me. “We had orders,” he said bitingly, “to capture Sigefrid, Erik, and Haesten, and deliver them as captives to King Æthelstan.” I saw Erik’s eyes widen slightly. I had assumed he spoke no English, but now realized he must have learned enough of the language to understand Æthelred’s words. “Are you disobeying my father-in-law?” Æthelred challenged me when I made no response.

  I kept my temper. “You can fight them here,” I explained patiently, “and you’ll lose many good men. Too many. You can trap them here, but at slack water a ship will row to the bridge and rescue them.” That would be a hard thing to do, but I had learned never to underestimate the seamanship of the Northmen. “Or you can rid Lundene of their presence,” I said, “and that is what I chose to do.” Aldhelm sniggered at that, implying that I had chosen the coward’s option. I looked at him and he challenged my gaze, refusing to look away.

  “Kill them, lord,” Aldhelm said to Æthelred, though he continued staring at me.

  “If you wish to fight them,” I said, “then that is your privilege, but I’ll have none of it.”

  For a moment both Æthelred and Aldhelm were tempted to accuse me of cowardice. I could see the thought on their faces, but they could also see something in my face and they let the thought go unsaid. “You always loved pagans,” Æthelred sneered instead.

  “I loved them so well,” I said angrily, “that I took two ships through that gap in the black of night,” I pointed to where the jagged stumps of the bridge’s planking ended. “I brought men into the city, cousin, and I captured Ludd’s Gate, and I fought a battle in that gate such as I would nev
er wish to fight again, and in that fight I killed pagans for you. And yes, I love them.”

  Æthelred looked at the gap. Spray showed continually there, thrown up by the seethe of water falling through the break with such force that the ancient wooden roadway quivered and the air was filled with the river’s noise. “You had no orders to come by ship,” Æthelred said indignantly, and I knew he resented my actions because they might detract from the glory he expected to garner from his capture of Lundene.

  “I had orders to give you the city,” I retorted, “so here it is!” I gestured at the smoke drifting over the scream-filled hill. “Your wedding present,” I said, mocking him with a bow.

  “And not just the city, lord,” Aldhelm said to Æthelred, “but everything in it.”

  “Everything?” Æthelred asked, as if he could not believe his good fortune.

  “Everything,” Aldhelm said wolfishly.

  “And if you’re grateful for that,” I interjected sourly, “then thank your wife.”

  Æthelred jerked around to stare wide-eyed at me. Something in my words had astonished him for he looked as though I had struck him. There was disbelief on his broad face, and anger, and for a moment he was incapable of speaking. “My wife?” he finally asked.

  “If it had not been for Æthelflaed,” I explained, “we could not have taken the city. Last night she gave me men.”

  “You saw her last night?” he asked incredulously.

  I looked at him, wondering if he was mad. “Of course I saw her last night!” I said. “We went back to the island to board the ships! She was there! She shamed your men into coming with me.”

  “And she made Lord Uhtred give her an oath,” Pyrlig added, “an oath to defend your Mercia, Lord Æthelred.”

  Æthelred ignored the Welshman. He was still staring at me, but now with an expression of hatred. “You boarded my ship?” he could barely speak for loathing and anger, “and saw my wife?”

  “She came ashore,” I said, “with Father Pyrlig.”

  I meant nothing by saying that. I had merely reported what had happened and hoped that Æthelred would admire his wife for her initiative, but the moment I spoke I saw I had made a mistake. I thought for a heartbeat that Æthelred was going to hit me, so fierce was the sudden fury on his broad face, but then he controled himself and turned and walked away. Aldhelm hurried after him and managed to check my cousin’s haste long enough to speak with him. I saw Æthelred make a furious, careless gesture, then Aldhelm turned back to me. “You must do what you think best,” he called, then followed his master through the arch where the Northmen’s shield wall made a passage for them.

  “I always do,” I said to no one in particular.

  “Do what?” Father Pyrlig asked, staring at the arch where my cousin had so abruptly vanished.

  “What I think is best,” I said, then frowned. “What happened there?” I asked Pyrlig.

  “He doesn’t like other men speaking to his wife,” the Welshman said. “I noticed that when I was on the ship with them, coming down the Temes. He’s jealous.”

  “But I’ve known Æthelflaed forever!” I exclaimed.

  “He fears you know her only too well,” Pyrlig said, “and it drives him to madness.”

  “But that’s stupid!” I spoke angrily.

  “It’s jealousy,” Pyrlig said, “and all jealousy is stupid.”

  Erik had also watched Æthelred walk away and was as confused as I was. “He is your commander?” the Norseman asked.

  “He’s my cousin,” I said bitterly.

  “And he’s your commander?” Erik asked again.

  “The Lord Æthelred commands,” Pyrlig explained, “and the Lord Uhtred disobeys.”

  Erik smiled at that. “So, Lord Uhtred, do we have an agreement?” He asked that question in English, hesitating slightly over the words.

  “Your English is good,” I said, sounding surprised.

  He smiled. “A Saxon slave taught me.”

  “I hope she was beautiful,” I said, “and yes, we do have an agreement, but with one change.”

  Erik bridled, but stayed courteous. “One change?” he asked cautiously.

  “You may take Wave-Tamer,” I said.

  I thought Erik would kiss me. For a heartbeat he did not believe my words, then he saw that I was sincere and he smiled broadly. “Lord Uhtred,” he began.

  “Take her,” I interrupted him, not wanting his gratitude, “just take her and go!”

  It had been Aldhelm’s words that had changed my mind. He had been right; everything in the city now belonged to Mercia, and Æthelred was Mercia’s ruler, and my cousin had a lust for anything beautiful and, if he discovered I wanted Wave-Tamer for myself, which I did, he would be sure to take it from me, and so I kept the ship from his grasp by giving it back to the Thurgilson brothers.

  Sigefrid was carried to his own ship. The Northmen, stripped of their weapons and valuables, were guarded by my men as they walked to the Wave-Tamer. It took a long time, but at last they were all on board and they shoved away from the quay, and I watched as they rowed downstream toward the small mists that still hovered above the lower reaches of the river.

  And somewhere in Wessex the first cuckoo called.

  I wrote Alfred a letter. I have always hated writing, and it has been years since I last used a quill. My wife’s priests now scratch letters for me, but they know I can read what they write so they take care to write what I tell them. But on the night of Lundene’s fall, I wrote in my own hand to Alfred. “Lundene is yours, lord King,” I told him, “and I am staying here to rebuild its walls.”

  Writing even that much exhausted my patience. The quill spluttered, the parchment was uneven, and the ink, which I had found in a wooden chest containing plunder evidently stolen from a monastery, spat droplets over the parchment. “Now fetch Father Pyrlig,” I told Sihtric, “and Osferth.”

  “Lord,” Sihtric said nervously.

  “I know,” I said impatiently, “you want to marry your whore. But fetch Father Pyrlig and Osferth first. The whore can wait.”

  Pyrlig arrived a moment later and I pushed the letter across the table to him. “I want you to go to Alfred,” I told him, “give him that, and tell him what happened here.”

  Pyrlig read my message and I saw a small smile flicker on his ugly face, a smile that vanished swiftly so that I would not be offended by his opinion of my handwriting. He said nothing of my short message, but glanced around with surprise as Sihtric brought Osferth into the room.

  “I’m sending Brother Osferth with you,” I explained to the Welshman.

  Osferth stiffened. He hated being called brother. “I want to stay here,” he said, “lord.”

  “The king wants you in Wintanceaster,” I said dismissively, “and we obey the king.” I took the letter back from Pyrlig, dipped the quill in the ink that had faded to a rusty brown, and added more words. “Sigefrid,” I wrote laboriously, “was defeated by Osferth, who I would like to keep in my household guard.”

  Why did I write that? I did not like Osferth any more than I liked his father, yet he had leaped from the bastion and that had shown courage. Foolish courage, perhaps, but still courage, and if Osferth had not leaped then Lundene might be in Norse or Danish hands to this day. Osferth had earned his place in the shield wall, even if his prospects of surviving there were still desperately low. “Father Pyrlig,” I said to Osferth as I blew on the ink, “will tell the king of your actions today, and this letter requests that you be returned to me. But you must leave that decision to Alfred.”

  “He’ll say no,” Osferth said sullenly.

  “Father Pyrlig will persuade him,” I said. The Welshman raised an eyebrow in silent question and I gave him the smallest nod to show I spoke the truth. I gave the letter to Sihtric and watched as he folded the parchment, then sealed it with wax. I pressed my badge of the wolf’s head into the seal, then handed the letter to Pyrlig. “Tell Alfred the truth about what happened here,” I said, �
�because he’s going to hear a different version from my cousin. And travel fast!”

  Pyrlig smiled. “You want us to reach the king before your cousin’s messenger?”

  “Yes,” I said. That was a lesson I had learned; that the first news is generally the version that is believed. I had no doubt Æthelred would be sending a triumphant message to his father-in-law, and I had no doubt either that in his telling, our part in the victory would be diminished to nothing. Father Pyrlig would ensure that Alfred heard the truth, though whether the king would believe what he heard was another matter.

  Pyrlig and Osferth left before dawn, using two horses out of the many we had captured in Lundene. I walked around the circuit of the walls as the sun rose, noting those places that still needed repair. My men were standing guard. Most were from the Berrocscire fyrd, which had fought under Æthelred the previous day, and their excitement at their apparently easy victory had still not subsided.

  A few of Æthelred’s men were also posted on the walls, though most were recovering from the ale and mead they had drunk through the night. At one of the northern gates, which looked toward misted green hills, I met Egbert, the elderly man who had yielded to Æthelflaed’s demands and had given me his best men. I rewarded him with the gift of a silver arm ring I had taken from one of the many corpses. Those dead were still unburied and, in the dawn, ravens and kites were feasting. “Thank you,” I said.

  “I should have trusted you,” he said awkwardly.

  “You did trust me.”

  He shrugged. “Because of her, yes.”

  “Is Æthelflaed here?” I asked.

  “Still at the island,” Egbert said.

  “I thought you were guarding her?”

  “I was,” Egbert said dully, “but Lord Æthelred had me replaced last night.”

  “Had you replaced?” I asked, then saw that his silver chain, the symbol that he commanded men, had been taken from him.

  He shrugged as if to tell me he did not understand the decision. “Ordered me to come here,” he said, “but when I arrived he wouldn’t see me. He was sick.”