War Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘The church,’ I said relentlessly, ‘is adept at forgery. Usually to claim land. They produce a document apparently signed by some king who died two hundred years ago, add a copy of the poor man’s seal, and claim he granted them so many hides of valuable pasture. Is that what happened at Burgham? This seal was forged?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, lord,’ the priest still muttered.

  ‘But the dishonest toad would know,’ I said, gazing at Ealdred, who had nothing to say and who refused to meet my gaze. ‘The brave warrior who hits small girls surely knows?’ I goaded him and still he remained silent. ‘You may tell the king,’ I said, ‘that I will hold Bebbanburg, that I have no alliance with the Scots and I never will.’

  The priest glanced at Ealdred, but it was plain he would say nothing. ‘What if there’s war, lord?’ the priest asked nervously.

  ‘Look,’ I said, pointing at the rafters of the hall where the ragged banners hung. ‘Those flags,’ I said, ‘were all flown by the enemies of the Saxons. Some fought Alfred, some fought his son and some fought his daughter. And why do you think they hang there?’ I did not give him time to answer. ‘Because I fought them. Because I killed them.’

  The priest looked up again. In truth the banners were so ragged and so discoloured by smoke he could hardly make them out, yet he recognised the triangular standards of the Northmen among the flags of Saxon warlords, and he could easily see how many there were. There were ravens, eagles, stags, axes, boars, wolves, and crosses, the badges of my enemies whose only reward for their enmity had been a few deeply dug feet of Saxon soil. ‘When you came through the gate,’ I said to the priest, ‘you saw the skulls. You know whose skulls they are?’

  ‘Your enemies, lord,’ he whispered.

  ‘My enemies,’ I agreed, ‘and I’m happy to add more skulls.’ I stood, then waited. Just waited and let the silence stretch until at last Ealdred could not resist looking at me. ‘There is only one Lord of Bebbanburg,’ I told him, ‘and you can go now. Your swords will be returned as you leave the fortress.’

  They left in cowed silence and, as they passed beneath the gate where ravens waited, and as they picked their way past the blood and butchered cattle, they must have noticed that the guards were now in clean mail and carrying spears scoured of rust. Still none of them spoke, but mounted their horses in silence, took their swords in silence, and then spurred beneath the Skull Gate which slammed loud behind them.

  ‘That’s made trouble,’ Finan said cheerfully. He walked towards the steps that led to the gate ramparts. ‘You remember that question Domnall asked you?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘How many allies do you have?’

  I climbed the steps with him, then watched as Ealdred and his men rode away. ‘We have Egil,’ I said bleakly, ‘if he lives.’

  ‘Of course he lives,’ Finan said cheerfully, ‘it’ll take more than a little turd like Ealdred to kill Egil! So it’s Egil and us against the rest of Britain?’

  ‘It is,’ I said, and Finan was right. We had no allies and an island of enemies. I had humiliated Ealdred and so made a dangerous enemy because he had the king’s ear, and Æthelstan would see my defiance as both a provocation and an insult. The monarch of all Britain would see me as an enemy now. ‘You think I should grovel?’

  I could see Finan thinking about that question. He frowned. ‘If you grovel, lord, they’ll think you’re weak.’

  He rarely called me lord, and only when he wanted me to listen. ‘So we defy them?’

  ‘Wiltunscir doesn’t tempt you?’

  ‘I don’t belong there,’ I said. ‘It’s too soft, too plump, too easy. You want to live there?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I like Northumbria. It’s almost as good as Ireland.’

  I smiled at that. ‘So what would you have me do?’

  ‘What you always do, of course. What we always do. We fight.’

  We watched until Ealdred and his horsemen were out of sight.

  We were alone.

  PART TWO

  The Devil’s Work

  Seven

  Not quite alone because Egil lived. He had ridden hard to stay ahead of his pursuers, reaching his home a full half day before Ealdred and his horsemen appeared. ‘He came mid-afternoon,’ Egil had told me, ‘took one look at the two hundred warriors on the palisade and disappeared southwards.’

  ‘Two hundred!’ I said. ‘You don’t have two hundred warriors!’

  ‘Give a woman a spear, lord, cover her tits with a mail coat, hide her hair with a helmet, and how can you tell? Besides, some of my women are more terrifying than my men.’

  So Ealdred had gone from Egil’s home to Bebbanburg, then south to Eoferwic where, we heard, he was living with over a hundred West Saxon warriors in Guthfrith’s palace. More West Saxons had garrisoned Lindcolne, which meant Æthelstan was tightening his grip on Northumbria.

  And this meant that he would surely squeeze Bebbanburg, though as the summer drew on we were left alone. It was a time for filling our storerooms, of strengthening ramparts that were already strong, and of relentless patrolling of our southern lands. ‘When will they come?’ Benedetta asked me.

  ‘After the harvest, of course.’

  ‘Maybe they won’t come?’

  ‘They will.’

  And my friends in Eoferwic would surely give me warning if they could and I had plenty of friends in the city. There was Olla who owned a tavern and whose daughter Hanna had married Berg. Like all tavern-keepers he heard gossip, and his whores had secrets whispered into their ears. There was one-eyed Boldar Gunnarson who was still one of Guthfrith’s household warriors, and there were priests who served Hrothweard, the archbishop. All those men, and a dozen others, found ways to send me news. Their messages were brought by travellers, by trading ships, and ever since I had humiliated Ealdred the messages said the same thing, that he wanted revenge. A letter arrived from Guthfrith, though the language betrayed it had been written by a West Saxon, demanding my allegiance and swearing that if I refused to kneel to him then he would ravage my lands to take what he claimed I owed him.

  I burned that letter, sent a warning to Sihtric who commanded the garrison at Dunholm that secured my southern border, and more warnings to every village and settlement inside my lands, and still nothing happened. No warriors rode from Eoferwic, no steadings were burned, and no cattle or sheep were stolen. ‘He does nothing!’ Benedetta said scornfully. ‘Maybe he is frightened of you?’

  ‘He’s waiting for Æthelstan’s orders,’ I explained. The king was far to the south in Wintanceaster and doubtless Ealdred was reluctant to move against me without Æthelstan’s approval, and that approval must have been given because as the summer waned we heard that four West Saxon ships had come to Eoferwic with over a hundred more warriors and a great chest of silver. That money paid the smithies of Eoferwic to beat out spear-blades and to persuade priests to preach sermons that denounced Bebbanburg as a nest of pagans. Archbishop Hrothweard might have curbed that nonsense. He was a good man, and his liking for me and his dislike of Guthfrith had made him advise Ealdred against starting a war between Eoferwic and Bebbanburg, but Hrothweard had fallen gravely ill. The monk who brought me the news touched his forehead with a long finger, ‘Poor old man doesn’t know if it’s today or Whitsun, lord.’

  ‘He’s moon-touched?’ I asked.

  The monk nodded. He and his three companions were carrying a gospel book to a monastery in Alba and had sought shelter for the night in Bebbanburg. ‘He forgets to dress sometimes, lord, and he can hardly speak, let alone preach. And his hands shake so that they have to feed him his gruel. There are new priests in the city now, lord, priests from Wessex, and they’re fierce!’

  ‘You mean they don’t like pagans?’

  ‘They don’t, lord.’

  ‘Is Bishop Oswald one of them?’

  He shook his tonsured head. ‘No, lord, it’s usually Father Ceolnoth who preaches in the cathedral.’

  I l
aughed sourly. I had known Ceolnoth and his twin brother, Ceolberht, since boyhood and I disliked them as much as they disliked me. Ceolberht, at least, had reason to hate me because I had kicked out most of his teeth and that memory, at least, gave me a happy moment and such moments were scarce as the summer faded into autumn. The raids began.

  They were small at first. There were cattle raids on my southern border, a barn was burned, fish traps destroyed and always the raiders were Norse or Dane, none of them carrying Guthfrith’s symbol of a tusked boar on their shields and none of them West Saxons. I sent my son south with thirty men to help Sihtric of Dunholm, but my land was vast, the enemy cautious, and my men found nothing. Then fishing boats were attacked, their nets and catch stolen and their ships dismasted. None of my folk was killed, not even wounded. ‘It were two Saxon ships,’ one of the fishermen told me when I took Spearhafoc down the coast.

  ‘They had crosses on their prows?’

  ‘They had nothing, lord, but they were Saxon. They had that belly look!’ The ships built in the south had swollen bows, nothing like Spearhafoc’s sleeker lines. ‘The bastards who boarded us spoke foreign, but they were Saxon boats.’

  I sent Spearhafoc south every day, usually commanded by Gerbruht, while Egil’s brother, Thorolf, brought Banamaðr to help, but again they found nothing. The cattle raids went on, while in Eoferwic the priests preached vituperous sermons claiming that any man who paid rent to a pagan lord was doomed to the eternal flames of hell.

  Yet still no one was killed. Cattle were stolen, storehouses emptied, steadings burned and ships dismasted, but no one died. Ealdred was goading me and I suspected he wanted me to kill first because that would give him an excuse to declare an outright war on Bebbanburg. As winter approached the raids became larger, more farms were burned and Norsemen came across the western hills to attack my upland tenants. Still no one died, though the cost was high. Rents had to be foregone, timber cut for rebuilding, animals and seed corn replaced. A second letter came with Guthfrith’s seal claiming I owed him fifteen pounds of gold and I burned that letter as I had burned the first, but it gave me an idea. ‘Why don’t we give him what he wants?’ I suggested.

  We were sitting in the hall, close to the great hearth where a fire of willow logs spat and crackled. It was an evening in early winter and a cold east wind gusted through the roof’s smoke-hole. Benedetta stared at me as though I had gone as mad as poor Hrothweard. ‘Give him Bebbanburg?’ she asked, shocked.

  No,’ I said, standing, ‘come.’

  I led Benedetta, Finan and my son through the door that opened from the hall’s dais. Beyond was our bedchamber, a heap of furs where Benedetta and I slept, and I kicked them aside to reveal the floor of thick wooden planks. I sent my son to fetch an ironbar and, when he brought it, told him to lift the heavy planks. He heaved on the crowbar, Finan helped him, and they lifted one floorboard clear. It was a huge piece of timber, a foot square and two paces long. ‘Now the rest,’ I said, ‘there are seven of them.’

  I was giving away no secrets. Benedetta knew what lay beneath our bed, and both Finan and my son had seen the gaping hole before, but even so they all gasped as the last timbers were dragged aside and the lanterns lit the hole beneath.

  They saw gold. A dragon’s hoard of gold. A lifetime of gold. Plunder. ‘Jesus,’ Finan said. He might have seen it before, but the sight was still awesome. ‘How much is there?’

  ‘More than enough to tempt Ealdred,’ I said, ‘and enough to distract Æthelstan.’

  ‘Distract?’ Benedetta stared down into the gleam and glitter of the hoard.

  ‘Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘has made a kind of peace with all Britain, except for me. I need to give him another enemy.’

  ‘Another enemy?’ my son asked, puzzled.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said and climbed down into the hole that was a natural hollow in the rock on which Bebbanburg had been built. I lifted out the treasures. There was a golden dish wide enough to hold a haunch of beef. It had women and goat-legged men chasing each other around the rim. There were tall candlesticks, doubtless stolen from a church, that I had taken from Sköll, there were ingots, gold chains, beakers, jugs and cups. There was a leather bag filled with jewellery, with sword decorations of intricate beauty, with brooches and clasps. There were rubies and emeralds, arm rings, and a crude golden circlet that Hæsten had worn. There were gold coins, a small Roman statuette of a woman wearing a crown of sun rays, and a wooden chest heaped with hacksilver. Some of the gold had been hoarded by my father, more by his brother, my treacherous uncle, but most was the treasure of my enemies, the hoard I kept for when hard times struck Bebbanburg.

  I stooped and found a crude cup that I gave to Finan. The cup looked as though it had been beaten into shape with a stone hammer, it was rough and lumpy, but it was pure gold. ‘Do you remember those graves to the west of Dunholm?’ I asked him. ‘The three graves?’

  ‘In the hills?’

  ‘In the high valley. There was a tall stone there.’

  ‘The Devil’s Valley!’ he said, remembering. ‘Three grave mounds!’

  ‘The Devil’s Valley?’ Benedetta asked, making the sign of the cross.

  Finan grinned. ‘The old Archbishop of Eoferwic called it that. What was his name?’

  ‘Wulfhere,’ I said.

  ‘Wulfhere!’ Finan nodded. ‘He was a gnarly old bastard. He preached that the graves hid demons and forbade anyone to go near them.’

  ‘Then he sent his own men to dig into the mounds,’ I took up the tale, ‘and we ran them off.’

  ‘And dug into the mounds yourself?’ my son asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I grinned, then touched the crude cup, ‘but that was all we found.’

  ‘And some bones,’ Finan added, ‘but no demons.’

  ‘But it’s time,’ I said, ‘that the graves are filled with gold and haunted by demons.’

  I would set a trap. I would offer Guthfrith gold, more gold than he had ever dreamed of, and I would give Ealdred what he wanted, a killing. Because I would kill first and I would kill ruthlessly, but for the trap to work it must be well laid and had to be kept secret.

  It took much of the winter to prepare. The older, rougher pieces like the stone-beaten cup and a brutal-looking torque were left alone, as were the ingots, but some of the others, like the candlesticks and some Roman dishes, were hammered into shapeless lumps. Æthelstan had demanded twenty-four pounds of gold from Hywel as part of his tribute, and by the time our work was finished we had over a hundred pounds of gold stored in a stout wooden chest. We did that work in secret, only Finan and my son helping, so that no word about gold could leak from Bebbanburg.

  Ealdred’s goading never stopped, though it was sporadic. Horsemen would come at dawn to burn granaries or barns, and to drive away the livestock. Still they killed no one, nor took slaves, and their victims told us that the raiders were always Northmen. They spoke Danish or Norse, they wore hammers, they carried plain shields. The raids cost me silver, but did no great harm. Buildings could be replaced, grain was sent from Bebbanburg, as were cattle and sheep. We still sent men to ride our southern border, but I gave orders that none was to cross onto Guthfrith’s land. It was war without death, even without fighting, and to my thinking it was pointless.

  ‘Then why are they doing it?’ Benedetta asked angrily.

  ‘Because Æthelstan wants it,’ was all I could say.

  ‘You gave him the throne! It is unjust!’

  I smiled at her indignation. ‘Greed overcomes gratitude.’

  ‘You are his friend!’

  ‘No, I’m a power in his kingdom, and he must show that he’s a greater power.’

  ‘Write to him! Tell him you are loyal!’

  ‘He wouldn’t believe me. Besides, it’s become a pissing contest.’

  ‘Ouff! You men!’

  ‘And he’s king, he has to win.’

  ‘Then piss on him! Do it properly!’

  ‘I will,’ I said g
rimly and, to make that happen, in the late winter when snow still lay in the shadowed hollows on the higher ground, I rode south with Finan, Egil and a dozen men. We took tracks through the hills rather than ride the Roman road, and we took shelter in taverns or small steadings. We claimed to be searching for land and maybe the folk believed us, maybe not, but we wore no finery, flaunted no gold, carried plain swords and took care to conceal our names. We paid for our shelter with hacksilver. It took us four days to reach the Devil’s Valley and it was just as I remembered it.

  The valley was high in the hills. Those hills climbed steeply to the east, west and north, but at the southern end was a lip that fell away to a deeper river valley where a Roman road ran straight from east to west. There were straggly pines in the high valley, and a stream that still had ice at its margins. The three burial mounds were in a straight line at the valley’s centre, their grass white with frost. There were deep scars in the mounds showing where we had dug so many years before and where, doubtless, the villagers from the river valley had dug since. The tall stone that had stood at the southern end of the mounds had fallen and lay in the thin turf.

  ‘Summer pasture,’ Egil kicked at the grass as we walked towards the valley’s lip. ‘Not much good for anything else.’

  ‘It’s good as a place to find gold,’ I said. We stopped at the valley’s southern edge where a cold wind stirred our cloaks. The stream tumbled over the lip to join the river that glinted far beneath us in the winter sunlight. ‘That must be the Tesa,’ I pointed at the river. ‘The border of my land.’

  ‘So this valley is yours?’

  ‘Mine. Everything to the river bank is mine.’

  ‘And beyond?’

  ‘Guthfrith’s,’ I said, ‘or perhaps Ealdred’s. Not mine, anyway.’

  Egil gazed into the wider valley. From our high place we could clearly see the road, a village, and an earth track going from the settlement to the Tesa’s northern bank, and another track leading away from the opposite bank, a clear sign that the Tesa could be forded. ‘Where does the road go?’ he asked.