I dreamed I was in a barrow-mound. I knew that, though how I knew I did not know. I knew the dragon had been burning steadings, spewing flame on my people’s homes, and that it must be killed. I am the Lord of Bebbanburg, the guardian of my people, so it was my duty to go to its gold-hoard and kill the beast. I had armed myself with a great shield of iron, hammered by Deogol, Bebbanburg’s blacksmith. It was heavy, that shield, but a willow-board shield would have burst into flame at the dragon’s first breath and so I carried the iron shield as the beast writhed towards me. It screamed, not in fear, but in rage, and its great head reared, I crouched, and the flame spewed about me with a roar like a thousand tempests. The fire wrapped me, seared and scorched me, it turned the shield red, and the very earth trembled as I forced my way forward and raised the sword.
It was never Serpent-Breath. It was an older sword, scarred and pitted, a sword battered by battle and I knew her name was Nægling, which meant the claw. A claw against a dragon, and as the beast reared again I attacked with Nægling, and it was a good strike! I lunged at the dragon’s head, between the eyes, a killing blow into the killing place, and Nægling shattered. That was when I woke, night after night, sweating and terrified, as the flames spewed again and I staggered, fire-encircled, burning, and with the broken sword in my hand.
I feared to sleep, for to sleep was to dream, and to dream was to see my own death. It was a rare night when the dragon did not wriggle from his gold-lair and I did not wake in terror. Then as the long winter nights dragged on, the dream became more real. The dragon roared the fire a second time and I dropped the shield that was now glowing red, and threw away Nægling’s useless hilt, and drew my seax. And on my right a companion came to share the fight. It was not Finan, but Sigtryggr, my dead son-in-law, whose wooden shield was burning, whose right arm stabbed with his long sword to pierce the dragon’s head, and I stabbed too, with Bitter. Bitter? My seax was called Wasp-Sting, not Bitter, but Bitter proved a better blade than Nægling, for her bright edge sliced the dragon’s throat and liquid fire poured to drench my arm with agony. There were two screams of pain, mine and the dragon’s, and the great beast toppled, the fire died, and Sigtryggr was kneeling beside me and I knew that my length of days was over and that the joys of life were ending. Then I would wake.
‘You had the dream again?’ Benedetta asked.
‘We killed the dragon, but I died.’
‘You did not die,’ she said stubbornly, ‘you are here.’
‘Sigtryggr helped me.’
‘Sigtryggr! He was kin to Anlaf, yes?’
‘And to Guthfrith.’ I pushed the furs off my body. It was a cold winter’s night, but I was hot. ‘The dream is an omen,’ I said, as I had said a hundred times before, but what did it mean? The dragon had to be Constantine and his allies, and by fighting them I would die, but my ally was a Norseman, Sigtryggr, and he was Anlaf’s cousin, so was I meant to fight alongside Anlaf? Did Nægling break because I fought for the wrong side? I groped for Serpent-Breath’s hilt. The sword was never far from me so that if death came in the dark I might have a chance to grip her.
‘The dream means nothing,’ Benedetta said sternly. ‘It is an old story, that is all.’
‘All dreams mean something. They are messages.’
‘Then find an old woman who can tell you the meaning! Then find another, and she will tell you a different meaning. A dream is a dream.’
She was trying to reassure me. I knew she believed in dreams as messages, but she did not want to admit the truth of that dream where the dragon came from its hoard to gust its furnace heat. Yet by day the dream receded. Was the dragon Scotland? But it seemed Æthelstan was right and that the Scots had been cowed. There were few cattle raids, Eochaid stayed far from Cumbria where the Norse, though sullen, paid their land rents to Godric and Alfgar. Two years after Æthelstan’s invasion the Scots even sent an embassy to Eoferwic where Æthelstan was holding court. They brought gifts; a precious gospel book and six cunningly carved walrus tusks. ‘Our king,’ their spokesman, a bishop, bowed to Æthelstan, ‘will also send the tribute that we owe.’ He seemed to bite the words as he said them.
‘The tribute is late,’ Æthelstan said sternly. The king, his long hair again bright with gold-threaded ringlets, sat tall in the throne that had belonged to Sigtryggr.
‘It will come, lord King,’ the bishop said.
‘Soon.’
‘Soon,’ the bishop repeated.
I heard that the tribute was delivered to Cair Ligualid, though whether it was the full amount I did not hear. I had attended Æthelstan in Eoferwic and he had seemed pleased to see me, he teased me for my grey beard, was gracious to Benedetta, but otherwise ignored us. I left as soon as I could, returning to the sanctuary of Bebbanburg where the dream persisted, though not as frequently. I told Finan of the dream and he just laughed. ‘If you fight a dragon, lord, I promise to be beside you. And pity the poor beast. We’ll add its skull to the gate. That would be a fine thing to see, so it would.’
And in the next twelvemonth the dream faded. It still came, but rarely. There was a night at harvest time when Egil came to Bebbanburg and my warriors beat the tables and demanded a song and he gave them the story of Beowulf. And even that did not revive the dream. I sat and listened to the tale’s ending, how King Beowulf of the Geats, old and hoary, went to the deep barrow with his iron shield, and how he drew Nægling, his battle sword, and how the sword broke and how Beowulf, with one companion, then killed the beast with his seax, Bitter, and then was killed himself.
Warriors are sentimental. My men knew the story, yet they sat transfixed by its long telling, and there were tears when the end came. Egil struck deep chords on the harp, and his voice grew strong. ‘Swa begnornodon Geata leode, hlafordes hryre.’ I swear I saw men crying as Egil chanted the lines of mourning, how Beowulf’s men lamented their dead lord, saying that of all the kings he was the best, the most generous, the kindest and the most deserving of honour. And when the last chord was struck Egil winked at me and the hall resounded with cheers and table-beating. I thought the dream must come again that night, but it stayed away, and in the morning I felt Serpent-Breath’s hilt and was glad to be alive.
That was the dawn of a noise-day, an event my men always enjoyed. I had purchased horses in Eoferwic, thirty-five fine young stallions, and we took them to a stretch of sand just beyond the Skull Gate and there surrounded them. Many of the villagers came too, the women carrying pots and pans, the children overexcited, and then I gave the word and all of us began to make noise. And such a noise! Men beat swords together, clashed spear butts on shields, children shrieked, women beat pots together, all of us making a clangour fit to wake the dead in Bebbanburg’s graveyard that lay not fifty yards away. Egil was still with us and I cupped my hands to shout into his ear. ‘You should sing!’
‘Me? Sing? Why?’
‘The object is to frighten the horses!’
He laughed and bellowed insults instead. And we watched the animals. We ride horses into battle. Most times, of course, we make a shield wall and the horses are kept well back, but sometimes we ride them into the killing place and a frightened horse is a useless horse. Yet horses can be trained to survive the din, to ignore the shrieks, the clangour of blades and the piercing screams, and so we try to accustom them to the noise so that they will not fear the awful sound of battle.
And while we shouted and made our noise a horseman came from the west. Finan saw him first and touched my elbow. I turned and saw a weary horse, sweat-whitened, and a wide-eyed rider almost falling from the saddle with tiredness. He half collapsed when he dismounted, and only Finan’s arm kept him upright. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘lord.’ Then told me his message.
The dragon was coming south.
‘The Scots, lord,’ the messenger said, and he was so tired he could hardly speak and I checked his words with a raised hand and gave him a flask of ale.
‘Drink,’ I said, ‘then talk.’
‘T
he Scots, lord,’ he said when he had drained the flask, ‘they invaded.’
‘Cumbria?’ I guessed.
‘Ealdorman Alfgar sent me, lord. He’s going south.’
‘Alfgar?’
‘He’s gone to join forces with Godric, lord.’
Men were crowding around to hear the news. I made them step back, and told Aldwyn to take the messenger’s horse to the fortress. ‘He needs water,’ I told the boy, ‘then walk him before you stable him.’ I sat the messenger on a great bleached log of driftwood and made him tell his story slowly.
The Scots, he said, had crossed the River Hedene upstream of Cair Ligualid. ‘Hundreds, lord! Thousands! We were lucky.’
‘Lucky?’
‘We had warning. Some men were hawking by the river at dawn, they rode to tell us.’
‘You saw them?’
‘The Scots, lord? Yes! And blackshields. The ealdorman sent me to tell you.’
‘When was this?’
‘A week ago, lord. I rode fast! But I had to avoid the Scots!’
I did not ask whether Alfgar had sent a messenger to Æthelstan because it was obvious that he would have done that before telling me, but nor did I necessarily believe the messenger. His name was Cenwalh and he was a West Saxon by his speech, but the thought occurred to me that he could still be a man in Constantine’s service. There were plenty of Saxons in Scotland. Some were outlaws seeking sanctuary, others were men who had offended a great lord and fled north to escape punishment, and it was not past Scottish cunning to send such a man to persuade me to march away from Bebbanburg. If I stripped the fortress of most of its warriors and crossed Britain to face an enemy who did not exist then Constantine might well bring an army to assault my ramparts. ‘Did you see any Norse warriors?’ I asked Cenwalh.
‘No, lord, but the Cumbrian Norse will fight for Constantine.’
‘You think so?’
‘They hate us, lord. They hate the cross …’ his voice faltered as he saw my hammer.
‘Back to the fortress,’ I commanded my men.
I remember that day well, an autumn day of sunshine and small wind, of gentle seas and mild warmth. The harvest was almost finished and I had planned a feast for the villagers, but now I had to plan for the chance that Cenwalh’s tale was true. I asked Egil to hurry home and then send scouts north of the Tuede to search for any sign of a Scottish army gathering. Then I sent messages to those of my warriors who farmed my land, ordering them to Bebbanburg with their men, and I sent a man to Dunholm, to tell Sihtric that I might need his troops.
Then I waited. I was not idle. We sharpened spears, repaired mail, and bound willow-board shields with iron. ‘You will go then?’ Benedetta asked me.
‘I swore an oath to protect Æthelstan.’
‘And he needs an old man to protect him?’
‘He needs the old man’s warriors,’ I said patiently.
‘But he was your enemy!’
‘Ealdred was my enemy. He misled Æthelstan.’
‘Ouff!’ she exclaimed. I was tempted to smile at that, but sensibly kept a straight face. ‘Æthelstan has an army to protect him!’ she went on. ‘He has Wessex, he has East Anglia, he has Mercia! He has to have you too?’
‘If he calls for me,’ I said, ‘I will go.’
‘Perhaps he will not call.’
Or perhaps, I thought, Alfgar had panicked. Perhaps Constantine was raiding northern Cumbria and, once he had stolen the harvest and captured enough cattle, he would retreat into Scotland. Or perhaps Cenwalh’s story was untrue? I did not know, though an instinct told me that the dragon and the falling star had come at last. It was war.
‘If you go,’ Benedetta said, ‘I go too.’
‘No,’ I said firmly.
‘I am not your slave! Not a slave any more! I am not your wife. I am a free woman, you said so yourself! I go where I want!’
It was like trying to argue with a tempest and I said nothing more. And I waited.
More news came, but it was unreliable, mere rumour. The Scots were south of the Ribbel and still advancing, they had gone back north, they were marching east towards Eoferwic, they had been joined by an army of Norsemen, that there had been a battle near Mameceaster and the Scots had won, next day it was the Saxons who had triumphed. Alfgar was dead, Alfgar was pursuing a beaten Scottish army north. Nothing was certain, but the news, mostly brought by traders, none of whom had seen an army or a battle, persuaded me to send war-bands to the west in search of some reliable report. I ordered them not to cross into Cumbria, but to seek out fugitives and it was one of those bands, led by my son, that brought troubling news. ‘Olaf Einerson led sixteen men west,’ my son told me. ‘They took weapons, shields, and mail.’ Olaf Einerson was a surly, troublesome tenant who had taken over his father’s land and who was ever reluctant to pay me rent. ‘His wife told me,’ my son went on. ‘She says he’s gone to join the Scots.’
We heard other reports of Danes and Norsemen riding west over the hills with their men, and Berg, who took thirty men in search of news, came back to say that there were rumours of Scottish troops visiting Danish and Norse settlements offering silver and promises of more land. The only certainty I had was that Bebbanburg was not immediately threatened. Egil had led men deep into the north country, riding almost to the Foirthe, and found nothing. He brought that news to Bebbanburg and with him came his brother, Thorolf, and seventy-six mounted men. ‘And we’ll march together,’ he said happily.
‘I don’t know that I’m marching yet,’ I told him.
He looked around Bebbanburg’s courtyard, crammed with the troops I had summoned from my estates. ‘Of course you are,’ he said.
‘And if I march,’ I warned him, ‘I fight for Æthelstan Not for the Norse.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘And the Norse will side with Constantine,’ I said, and then, after a pause, ‘and don’t say of course they will.’
‘But of course they will,’ he said, smiling, ‘and I will fight for you. You saved my brother’s life, you gave me land, and you gave me friendship. Who else would I fight for?’
‘Against the Norse?’
‘Against your enemies, lord.’ He paused. ‘When do we march?’
I knew I had been delaying the decision, persuading myself that I waited for confirmation from a messenger I trusted. Was I reluctant? I had prayed never to stand in another shield wall, told myself that Æthelstan did not need my men, had listened to Benedetta’s pleas, and had remembered the dragon coming from the gold-hoard with its burning nostrils. Of course I was reluctant. Only the young and fools go to war gladly. Yet I was prepared for war. My men were gathered and the spears were sharp.
‘The Scots have ever been your enemies,’ Egil went on quietly. I said nothing. ‘And if you don’t march,’ he went on, ‘Æthelstan will mistrust you more than ever.’
‘He hasn’t summoned me.’
Egil glanced at Finan who had joined us on the seaward rampart. A gust of wind lifted Finan’s long grey hair, reminding me that we were old and that battle is a young man’s game. ‘We’re waiting for a summons from Æthelstan,’ Egil greeted the Irishman.
‘God knows if any messenger can get through Northumbria these days,’ Finan said.
‘My tenants are loyal,’ I said stubbornly.
‘Mostly,’ Finan said, ‘yes.’ But his dubious tone told me that not all my tenants were loyal to the Saxon cause. Olaf Einerson had already gone to join the invaders and others would go too, and any messenger coming from the south would have to avoid the settlements of the Northmen.
‘And what do you think is happening?’ Egil asked me.
I hesitated, tempted to say I did not know and that I waited for real news, but these two men were my closest friends, companions of battle, and I told them the truth. ‘I think the Scots are taking their revenge.’
‘Then what are you waiting for?’ Egil asked very quietly.
I answered just as quietly. ‘Courage.
’ Neither man spoke. I stared at the water shattering white on the Farnea Islands. This was home, the place I loved, and I did not want to march across the whole width of Britain to stand in another shield wall. ‘We march tomorrow,’ I said reluctantly, ‘at dawn.’
Because the dragon was flying south.
I rode unwillingly. It did not feel like my fight. To the south was Æthelstan, a king who had turned against me as he was dazzled by his own dreams of glory, while to the north was Constantine, who had ever wanted to take my land. I hated neither man, trusted neither, and wanted no part of their war. Except it was my war too. Whatever happened would decide the fate of Northumbria and I am a Northumbrian. My country is the hard high hills, the pounding sea coast, and the tough folk who make their living from the thin soil and the cold ocean. Beowulf rode to fight the dragon because he was the guardian of his people, and my people did not want to be ruled by their old enemy, the Scots. They were not enthusiastic about the southern Saxons either, regarding them as a soft, privileged people, but when swords are drawn and spear-blades glitter they will side with the Saxons. The Norse and the Danes of Northumbria might rally to Constantine, but only because they wanted to be left alone to worship the true gods. I would have liked that too, but history, like fate, is inexorable. Northumbria could not survive on its own and it must choose which king would rule, and I, as Northumbria’s greatest lord, would choose the man I had once sworn to protect. We would ride to Æthelstan.
And so we travelled the familiar road to Eoferwic. Once there we would follow the Roman road through Scipton, across the hills and so down to Mameceaster. I was praying that Constantine’s army would not have reached that far, because if he broke through the row of burhs that protected Mercia’s northern frontier then he would be free to savage and plunder the rich Mercian fields. I led over three hundred warriors, including thirty-three from Dunholm and Egil’s fearsome Norsemen. We were all mounted, and followed by over fifty servants leading packhorses that carried food, fodder, shields and spears. I had left just forty men to hold Bebbanburg under the command of Redbad, a reliable Frisian warrior, who would be helped by Egil’s folk who I had encouraged to shelter behind the fortress’s ramparts. There had been no sign of a Scottish invasion on the east coast, but Egil’s men would sleep better knowing that their women and children were behind Bebbanburg’s mighty walls. ‘And if the Scots do come,’ Egil told Redbad cheerfully, ‘you put the women in helmets on the ramparts. They’ll look like warriors! Enough to scare off the Scots.’
War Lord Page 24
