War Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  Instead of answering his question I asked one of my own. ‘You think Æthelstan really gave Bebbanburg to Ealdred?’ The question that had kept me awake.

  ‘If he did,’ Finan said, ‘he’s a fool. He needs you as an enemy?’

  ‘He has thousands of men,’ I said, ‘and I have hundreds. What’s to fear?’

  ‘You,’ Finan said, ‘me. Us.’

  I smiled, then turned eastwards. We were following the northern bank of the River Lauther which was in spate, fed by the storm, seething and churning over its stony bed. Guthfrith’s encampment, crouched under the flail of wind-driven rain, lay to our left. There were few men visible there, most had to be sheltering from the weather, though a half dozen women were drawing water from the river with wooden buckets. They glanced at us nervously then carried their heavy pails towards the encampment where the campfires that had survived the night’s rain smoked dully. I curbed my stallion and gazed at Guthfrith’s shelters. ‘I was ordered to bring only thirty men,’ I said, ‘but how many do you think Guthfrith has?’

  Finan counted the shelters. ‘At least a hundred.’ He thought about that, then frowned. ‘At least a hundred! So what are we doing here?’ He waited for an answer, but I said nothing, just gazed at Guthfrith’s camp. ‘You’re making yourself a target?’ Finan asked.

  ‘For an archer? No bow will shoot in this rain. The cord will be soaked. Besides, those men are watching.’ I nodded towards a group of West Saxon horsemen who waited on the road that lay beyond Guthfrith’s camp. That road forded the River Eamotum and then led north towards the Scottish lands, and I guessed that the men guarding the ford were the same men who had accosted us on our arrival, men who were charged with keeping the peace. ‘Let’s ride further east,’ I said.

  The rain’s anger lessened as we rode, the wind became fitful and a low band of brighter cloud showed above the eastern hills. We followed the river past small patches of woodland and rough pasture. ‘So Guthfrith swore loyalty to Æthelstan?’ I said.

  ‘But he’ll still fight for Constantine,’ Finan said.

  ‘Probably.’ I was thinking of Hywel’s advice to choose my side well. My family had held Bebbanburg for almost four hundred years even though it was surrounded by a kingdom ruled by incomers, by Northmen, either Danes or Norse. Now Northumbria was the last kingdom in pagan hands and both Æthelstan and Constantine were eyeing it, wanting it. ‘So why doesn’t Æthelstan just kill Guthfrith?’ I wondered aloud.

  ‘Because of Anlaf, of course,’ Finan answered confidently.

  Anlaf. He was only a name to me, but a name that was becoming ever more familiar and ever heavier with threat. He was a young Norseman, the King of Dyflin in Ireland, who had made his reputation fast, and that reputation said he was a warrior to fear. He had conquered most of the other Norse kings of Ireland and reports from across the water claimed he had a fleet that could darken the sea. ‘Guthfrith is family to Anlaf,’ Finan went on, ‘and if Guthfrith dies then Anlaf will claim the throne by inheritance. He’ll bring his army over the water. He wants Northumbria.’

  I swerved slightly northwards to the shelter of a copse and waited there, looking back the way we had come. A smudge of smoke hung in the sky from the myriad campfires of the men gathered by Æthelstan. Finan stood his horse beside mine. ‘You think Guthfrith will follow us?’ he asked.

  ‘I suspect the archer last night was one of his men.’

  ‘Likely as not.’

  ‘And my death would be a gift to Æthelstan,’ I added bitterly.

  ‘Because he wants Bebbanburg?’

  ‘He needs it. He needs fortresses all across the north and he knows I’ll never surrender Bebbanburg. Never.’

  Finan, rain dripping from his helmet’s brow onto his grey beard, did not speak for a few heartbeats, then, ‘He owes you everything.’

  ‘He’s risen above me. He’s King of Britain and I’m old and irrelevant. He wants a new Britain dominated by Englaland and I’m a small pagan stone in his royal Christian shoe.’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  I shrugged. ‘Wait till he summons me. I’ll listen to him, then make up my mind.’ I smiled wryly. ‘If I live.’ I nodded westwards. A dozen horsemen were following us, appearing between some low trees on the river bank. They were in mail, wore helmets and carried spears, swords, and shields blazoned with Guthfrith’s boar. ‘Let’s keep going.’

  We went on eastwards, faster now, the horses throwing up clods of damp earth from their heavy hooves. To our right the Lauther flowed to its junction with the River Eamotum that was hidden by thick trees to our left. Another belt of trees lay ahead and, once inside them, we lost sight of the horsemen who followed us. ‘Go that way?’ Finan suggested, pointing north to where the river was edged thick with trees. We stood a chance of losing the men behind us if we went into that larger patch of woodland, but I shook my head.

  ‘We keep going,’ I said.

  ‘But …’

  ‘Keep going!’ I ducked under a low branch and spurred onto more wet pastureland. Ahead of us now I could see the two rivers getting ever nearer each other. ‘Can we cross them?’ Finan asked.

  ‘We can cross the Lauther if we have to,’ I said, pointing to the river to our right. I had sounded unenthusiastic because, though that smaller river was shallow, its water was piling and churning over a stony bed. ‘I’d rather not try,’ I added, ‘because one stumble and those bastards will be on top of us. We’d do best to stay between the rivers.’

  ‘They look as if they join!’

  ‘They do.’

  Finan gave me a curious look. We were riding towards the narrow point of land where the two rivers met and Guthfrith’s horsemen were blocking our path back to the encampment, yet Finan heard the lack of concern in my voice. He glanced behind, frowned at the hurrying rivers, then looked at the thick woodland that still lay to our left. Then he gave a curt laugh. ‘Boar hunting! You can be a sneaky bastard, lord.’

  ‘Can be?’

  He laughed again, suddenly glad he had ridden with me in the rain. We swerved northwards, heading for the trees, and behind us our pursuers came into sight. They were still a good distance away, but they must have reckoned we were trapped by the two fast-running and storm swollen rivers. I curbed the stallion, turned and faced them. If Egil was not where I suspected he was then we were indeed trapped, but I trusted the Norseman as much as I trusted Finan. ‘I’m tempting Guthfrith,’ I explained, ‘because there’s too much I don’t understand.’ Guthfrith’s horsemen, I was not sure whether he would be with them, were spreading into a line that would drive us onto the narrow neck where the two rivers joined in a maelstrom of tumbling water. They were coming slowly, cautiously, but confident now that we could not escape them. ‘I don’t know what Guthfrith and Æthelstan promised each other,’ I paused, watching the horsemen. ‘and I want to know.’ They were still two hundred paces away while we were perhaps fifty paces from the thick woodland. ‘Any time now,’ I said.

  ‘You’re sure Egil’s here?’

  ‘Does it matter? There’s only twelve of them and two of us. What are you worried about?’

  He laughed. ‘And if Guthfrith is one of them?’

  ‘We kill the bastard,’ I said, ‘but we question him first.’

  And as I spoke so our pursuers drove their spurs back. They lowered their spears and hefted their shields as their big horses pounded the wet turf. We immediately spurred north towards the wood as if we sought the shelter of the trees and, as I urged my stallion into a gallop, I saw the flickers of light from spearheads among the leaves.

  And Egil Skallagrimmrson came beneath his banner of the spread-winged eagle, his horses bursting from the wood in two groups, one charging straight at Guthfrith’s men, the other aiming behind to cut off their retreat. Egil was screaming his war cry, standing in his stirrups, his sword Adder held high in the rain, and his brother Thorolf, a big man on a tall horse, rode beside him with his war axe ready to kill. They were Norsemen
eager for a fight, and Finan and I slewed around to join their attack.

  It took Guthfrith’s men a horrified moment to realise the trap. The rain was driving into their faces, they thought us trapped, then a shout had alerted them. They, like us, turned their horses towards Egil, and one stallion slipped and fell. The rider shouted in pain, his leg crushed under the floundering horse, then Egil’s spearmen slashed into them, throwing three men instantly from their saddles. Blood in the morning rain. Egil beat a spear aside with Adder and swung the blade back to crunch the edge into a man’s face. The rest, trapped by Egil’s second group of horsemen, were already throwing down swords and spears, shouting that they yielded. Only one man was trying to escape, bloodying his stallion’s flanks as he spurred hard towards the Lauther.

  ‘Mine!’ Finan called, pursuing the fugitive.

  ‘I want him alive!’ I shouted. The man’s scabbard flapped wildly as his horse pounded the sodden turf. For a moment I thought it might be Guthfrith himself, but the fugitive was too thin and had a long fair plait hanging beneath his helmet. ‘Alive!’ I shouted again, following Finan.

  The man forced his horse down the steep bank into the Lauther’s fast water. The stallion baulked, the spurs drew blood again, then one of the fore hooves must have trodden on a rock beneath the white-ravaged water because the horse fell sideways. The rider fell with him, somehow keeping hold of sword and shield. He managed to drag his leg from beneath the struggling horse, then tried to stand, but Finan, dismounted, was already standing over him with Soul-Stealer at his throat. I stopped at the top of the river bank. The fallen man’s horse was trotting out of the water as the fallen man attempted to swing his sword at Finan, but then went very still as Soul-Stealer’s point pricked the skin of his throat. ‘You’ll want to talk to this one,’ Finan said, stooping to take the fallen man’s sword and I saw that it was Kolfinn, the young man who had challenged me when we arrived at Burgham. Finan threw the sword onto the bank, then prodded Kolfinn to his feet. ‘Up the bank, boy,’ he said, ‘and you won’t need a shield.’

  Kolfinn, streaming water, struggled up the muddy bank. He made a move towards his horse, but Finan rapped Soul-Stealer across his helmet. ‘You don’t need a horse either, boy. You walk.’ Kolfinn scowled at me, looked as if he was about to say something, and then thought better of it. His long fair plait hung down his back, dripping, and his boots squelched as he was prodded towards the surviving men who were surrounded by Egil’s spears.

  ‘That was too easy,’ Egil grumbled as I joined him.

  We had eight prisoners, all of whom had been stripped of their mail, weapons and helmets. Their leader was a sullen man called Hobern and I took him aside as the others, under Norse spears, threw their dead companions into the Lauther. One of Egil’s men was telling Kolfinn to take off his mail, but I stopped him. ‘Let him be,’ I said.

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘Let him be,’ I repeated, then walked Hobern towards the river junction, followed by Thorolf, who carried his massive axe that he seemed eager to bury in Hobern’s back. So what, I asked Hobern, had been agreed between Æthelstan and Guthfrith?

  ‘Agreed?’ he asked sullenly.

  ‘When Guthfrith swore his oath to Æthelstan,’ I snarled, ‘what was agreed?’

  ‘Tribute, troops, and missionaries,’ he said unhappily. He had been reluctant to talk, but Thorolf had thrust him onto his knees. Hobern had already lost his weapons, helmet and mail and he shivered in the chill rain. Now I was encouraging him to speak by holding a small knife close to his face.

  ‘Missionaries?’ I asked, amused.

  ‘Guthfrith must be baptised,’ he muttered.

  I laughed at that. ‘And the rest of you? You have to become Christians?’

  ‘So he says, lord.’

  I should not have been surprised. Æthelstan wanted to unite the Saxon peoples into one country, Englaland, but he also wanted every inhabitant of Englaland to be Christian, and Northumbria was still far from being a Christian country. It had been ruled by the Danes or the Norse for almost all my life, and more pagans were constantly coming by ship. Æthelstan could convert the country by slaughtering the pagans, but that would start a war that could invite the overseas Norse to intervene. It was better, far better, to convert the Northmen, and the fastest way to do that was to convert their leaders. It had worked in both East Anglia and Mercia so that the Danes who had settled in those lands were now kneeling to the nailed god, and some of them, like Bishop Oda, were rising in the church. I did not doubt that Æthelstan wanted Guthfrith dead, but killing him would only invite another member of his family to claim the throne and that would likely be Anlaf, the Norseman whose ships covered the sea and whose armies had conquered almost all his Irish rivals. It was better for Æthelstan to keep the weak Guthfrith on the throne, to force him to be baptised, to garrison his country with loyal Saxon troops, and to weaken his authority by demanding rich payments of tribute silver.

  ‘And why,’ I asked, ‘did Guthfrith send you to follow me?’

  Hobern hesitated, but I shifted the small knife so it hovered near his eyes. ‘He hates you, lord.’

  ‘So?’

  Another hesitation, another shift of the blade. ‘He wants you dead, lord.’

  ‘Because I stopped him from reaching Constantine of Scotland?’

  ‘Because he hates you, lord.’

  ‘Does Æthelstan want me dead?’

  He looked surprised at that question, then shrugged. ‘He didn’t say so, lord.’

  ‘Guthfrith didn’t say so?’

  ‘He said that you were to pay him tribute, lord.’

  ‘Me? Pay that turd tribute?’

  Hobern shrugged as if to suggest he was not responsible for his answer. ‘King Æthelstan said that Bebbanburg is in Guthfrith’s realm and that you should swear loyalty to Guthfrith. He said your lands could make Guthfrith wealthy.’

  ‘So Guthfrith must make war on me?’

  ‘He must demand tribute, lord.’

  And if I refused to pay, which I would, Guthfrith would take what he claimed I owed him in cattle. That would mean war between Eoferwic and Bebbanburg, a war that would weaken both of us and give Æthelstan the excuse to intervene as a peacemaker. ‘Who was the archer last night?’ I asked suddenly.

  ‘Last night?’ Hobern asked, then flinched as I pricked the skin beneath his left eye with the knife’s point. ‘Kolfinn, lord,’ he muttered.

  ‘Kolfinn!’ I sounded surprised, but in truth I had half expected it would be the angry young man who had accused me of cowardice.

  ‘He’s Guthfrith’s chief huntsman,’ Hobern muttered.

  ‘Did Guthfrith order my death?’

  ‘I don’t know, lord.’ He flinched again. ‘I don’t know!’

  I pulled the knife back an inch. ‘Guthfrith received envoys from Constantin, didn’t he?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘And what did Constantine want? Guthfrith’s alliance?’

  Again he nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘And Constantine would keep Guthfrith on the throne?’

  Hobern hesitated, then saw the knife blade flicker. ‘No, lord.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He promised Guthfrith he could have Bebbanburg.’

  ‘Bebbanburg,’ I repeated flatly.

  He nodded. ‘Constantine promised him that.’

  I stood, cursing the twinge in my knees. ‘Then Guthfrith is a fool,’ I said savagely. ‘Constantine has wanted Bebbanburg for ever. You think he’d yield it to Guthfrith?’ I sheathed the knife and walked a few paces away. Was I surprised? Constantine had sent Domnall to Bebbanburg with the offer of a generous treaty, but that offer simply hid the greater ambition to rule Northumbria, and as a generation of Northmen had discovered, to rule Northumbria you needed to possess its greatest fortress. If Guthfrith had allied himself to Constantine then he would have been dead in days and my great fortress would fly the flag of Alba.

  ‘So what have you
learned?’ Finan had followed me.

  ‘To trust no one.’

  ‘Oh, that’s useful,’ he said caustically.

  ‘They all want Bebbanburg. All of them.’

  ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘To settle a quarrel,’ I said angrily. ‘Did you bring that bastard’s sword?’

  ‘Kolfinn’s sword? Here.’ He held the sword out to me.

  ‘Give it to him.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Give it to him.’ I stalked back towards the disconsolate prisoners. Kolfinn was the only one wearing mail, but he was soaked through, shivering in the gusting wind that was slashing rain from the east. ‘You called me a coward,’ I snarled at him, ‘so take your sword.’

  He looked nervously from me to Finan, then took the sword that the Irishman held out to him.

  I drew Serpent-Breath. I was angry, not with Kolfinn, nor even with Guthfrith, but with myself for not recognising what was so damned obvious. There was Englaland, almost formed, there was Alba, with its ambition to rule still more territory, and between them was Northumbria, neither pagan nor Christian, neither Scottish nor Ænglisc, and soon it must be one or the other. Which meant I had to fight whether I wanted to or not.

  But for now there was a lesser fight, and one, I thought, that would assuage the larger anger. ‘You called me a coward,’ I accused Kolfinn, ‘and you challenged me. I accept your challenge.’ I stepped fast towards him, then checked and took a pace backwards. He had retreated and I saw how his waterlogged boots had slowed him and so I went at him again, cutting Serpent-Breath in a wide, wild swing that he raised his blade to parry, but I had stepped away before the blades could meet and his parry faded. ‘Is that the best you can do?’ I taunted him. ‘How did you get those arm rings? Fighting against children?’

  ‘You’re dead, old man,’ he said and came for me. He was fast and he came for me as wildly as I’d seemed to go for him, he attacked so fast and so wildly that I was hard put to parry his first massive cut, but his sodden clothing made him clumsy. I was rain-soaked, but not as wet as Kolfinn, who grimaced as he swung again and I encouraged him by stepping back, pretending his savage assault was driving me away and I saw the joy come to his face as he anticipated being the man who had defeated Uhtred of Bebbanburg. He wanted the fight over quickly now, he gritted his teeth and stepped towards me and grunted as he swept his blade in a gut-slicing blow, and I stepped inside it and punched Serpent-Breath’s hilt into his face. I hammered it into him, crushing one eye with the pommel and the sudden pain drained him of strength. He staggered back and I pushed him hard so that he fell. ‘You called me a coward,’ I said, then sliced Serpent-Breath to half sever his sword wrist. His fingers loosened their grip and I kicked the blade away into the wet grass.