‘I can only guess three thousand.’ I suspected Anlaf’s numbers were far greater than that, but this was not the time to add to Æthelstan’s fears. ‘A lot,’ I went on, ‘and the Scots are still joining him.’
‘By ship! Why aren’t our ships stopping that?’ No one answered that because Æthelstan knew the answer perfectly well himself. His ships were still in the Sæfern and, besides, even if he could bring those ships north he would not have enough vessels to challenge Anlaf’s huge fleet.
‘At least three thousand,’ I went on relentlessly, ‘and doubtless more men will come from the islands, and from Ireland.’
‘And I’ll have more men if I wait.’
‘You have enough, lord King,’ I said softly.
‘I have fewer than him!’ he said angrily.
‘And your grandfather was outnumbered at Ethandun,’ I said, ‘but he won.’
‘So Steapa keeps reminding me.’
‘Steapa! Is he with you?’
‘He insisted on coming,’ he said, frowning, ‘but he’s old! Like you!’
‘Steapa,’ I said forcefully, ‘is one of the greatest warriors Wessex ever had.’
‘So people tell me.’
‘Then listen to him, lord King, use him!’
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘And should I listen to you?’
‘You’re the king. You can do what you like.’
‘And fight that arrogant bastard on a field of his choosing?’
‘He’s chosen a battlefield that gives him an advantage,’ I said carefully, ‘but it also gives us a good chance of beating him.’
No one else had spoken since I entered the tent, neither Æthelstan’s men, nor Finan, who alone had accompanied me. I had travelled south with just six men, leaving Egil, Thorolf and Sihtric in Ceaster, and had chosen Finan because he wore the cross and because Æthelstan liked him. Finan now smiled. ‘You’re right, lord King,’ the Irishman said softly, ‘Anlaf is arrogant, and he’s also savage, but he’s not a subtle man.’
Æthelstan nodded. ‘Go on.’
‘He’s won his wars in Ireland by massive attacks, lord King, by using bigger armies than his enemies. He’s famous for mounting terrifying assaults with his úlfhéðnar and inflicting dreadful slaughter. Men are frightened of him, and he relies on that, because a terrified man is already half beaten. He wants you to accept his battle site because he sees a way to beat you.’ Finan pointed to the scrap of linen with its crude charcoal lines, ‘He thinks he can destroy the left wing of your army, then surround the rest and turn the stream to blood.’
‘So why give him that chance?’ Æthelstan asked.
‘Because he hasn’t thought beyond that,’ Finan said, still talking quietly and soberly. ‘He knows his plan will work, so he doesn’t need to think of another. He’s drinking ale in some hall on Wirhealum tonight and praying you will give him what he wants, because then he won’t be King of Northumbria, but King of all Britain. That’s all he sees. All he wants.’
There was silence, except for the sound of singing somewhere in Æthelstan’s camp. Prince Edmund, who, until Æthelstan married and had a son, was the next king, broke it. ‘But if we refuse his choice of battleground,’ he said, ‘we can choose our own. Maybe a place that gives us an advantage?’
‘Where, lord Prince?’ Finan asked. I was letting Finan do the talking now because I sensed that Æthelstan was irritated by me. ‘If we don’t arrive at Ceaster in the next five days,’ Finan went on, ‘the bridge over the Dee will be gone. Leof will surrender the city because Anlaf will offer him terms. Then their army will march into Mercia. We’ll pursue, and he’ll still choose a battlefield, only one that gives him an even bigger advantage.’
‘Or we trap him somewhere,’ Æthelstan said.
‘You might, lord King,’ Finan said very patiently, ‘or he might trap you? But I assure you that you have a good chance of destroying him on Wirhealum.’
‘Ha!’ Coenwulf, who was sitting with his fellow ealdormen, snarled. He had been scowling at me. I smiled at him, which succeeded in annoying him even more.
Æthelstan ignored Coenwulf. ‘You say Anlaf commands them? Not Constantine?’
‘Anlaf chose the battlefield,’ I said.
‘And Constantine allowed that?’
‘So it seems, lord King.’
‘Why?’ He asked the question indignantly, as though he was offended by Constantine accepting a lesser role.
Finan still answered for me. ‘Anlaf has the reputation of a warrior, lord King. He has never lost a battle and he’s fought many. Constantine, though a wise king, does not have the same renown.’
‘Never lost a battle!’ Æthelstan repeated. ‘And you think we can beat him at a place of his choosing?’
Finan smiled. ‘We can destroy him, lord King, because we know what he will do. And we will be ready for it, prepared for it.’
‘You make it sound easy,’ Coenwulf put in angrily, ‘yet Anlaf has the numbers, and he’s chosen the field. It’s madness to accept the challenge!’
‘We have to fight him somewhere,’ Finan said patiently, ‘and at least we know what he’ll do at Wirhealum.’
‘You think you know!’
‘And those úlfhéðnar,’ Æthelwyn, another of the ealdormen, spoke for the first time, ‘I worry about them.’ I saw how the others nodded agreement.
‘You’ve not fought them,’ I said, ‘but I have. And they’re killed easily.’
‘Easily!’ Coenwulf bridled at my claim.
‘They believe they’re invulnerable,’ I said, ‘and they attack like madmen. They’re frightening, but catch their first wild blow on your shield then slice a seax into their belly and they go down like any other man. I’ve killed enough of them.’
Æthelstan grimaced at that boast. ‘Whether we fight Anlaf at Wirhealum or somewhere else, we still have to face the úlfhéðnar,’ he said, dismissing Æthelwyn’s objection. He looked into my eyes. ‘Why are you so sure we can win at Wirhealum?’ he asked.
I hesitated, tempted to invent a fantasy that might persuade them. The fantasy would be about the second king called Anlaf, the ruler of Hlymrekr who Anlaf derided as Scabbyhead and who had been forced to bring his men to fight for his conqueror. I wanted to suggest that his men would fight less forcefully, that if we broke them we would break Anlaf’s line, but I did not believe that. The men of Hlymrekr would fight for their lives as fiercely as any other, so instead I looked into Æthelstan’s eyes. ‘Because we’ll break their shield wall, lord King.’
‘How?’ Coenwulf demanded indignantly.
‘The same way I’ve broken other men’s shield walls,’ I retorted derisively.
There was an awkward silence. I had sounded arrogant, but it was an arrogance no man wanted to challenge. I had broken shield walls and they knew it, just as they knew I had fought more battles than any of them. None of them spoke, only looked at Æthelstan, who was frowning at me. I think he suspected that my answer was an evasion. ‘And if we are to fight at Wirhealum,’ he said slowly, ‘I need to make a decision tonight?’
‘If you want to reach Ceaster in time, yes,’ I said.
Æthelstan still looked into my eyes, simply looked. He said nothing, nor did anyone else. I stared back. The decision was his, and he knew that his throne depended on it, just as he knew that Finan had spoken for me earlier, and our confidence intrigued him. ‘Stay, Lord Uhtred,’ he finally spoke. ‘The rest of you get some sleep.’
‘But—’ Æthelwyn began.
‘Go!’ Æthelstan snarled. ‘All of you, go!’
He waited until the others were gone, then poured two beakers of wine. He handed one to me. ‘You met Anlaf,’ he said flatly.
‘I did.’
‘Did he ask you to fight for him?’
‘Of course.’
‘How do I know you didn’t say yes?’
‘Because I took an oath to protect you. I’ve never broken it.’
I was sitting, sippi
ng the wine, which tasted sour to me, while Æthelstan paced up and down the thick rugs. ‘Æthelwyn says I can’t trust you.’
Æthelwyn was one of the newer ealdormen, a man I did not know and who had never stood near me in a shield wall. ‘Ealdred said the same,’ I said brutally, ‘so did Ingilmundr.’
He flinched at that, went on pacing. ‘I wanted to be king,’ he said softly.
‘I made you king.’
He ignored that. ‘I wanted to be a good king, like my grandfather. What made him a good king?’
‘He thought of others before himself,’ I said, ‘and he was clever. So are you.’
He stopped and turned on me. ‘You killed Ealdred.’ It was a statement, not a question.
I hesitated for a heartbeat, then decided this was a time for honesty. ‘I did.’
He grimaced. ‘Why?’
‘To protect you.’ I did not add that I was protecting him from bad advice. He knew that.
He frowned at me, thinking. ‘So you caused this war. I assume you killed Guthfrith too?’
‘I did,’ I said, ‘and this war was coming whether Ealdred or Guthfrith lived or died.’
He nodded. ‘I suppose it was,’ he said quietly, then looked at me accusingly. ‘You have frost now.’
‘Frost?’ I asked.
‘The stallion. I gave him to Lord Ealdred.’
‘A generous gift,’ I said. ‘I renamed him Snawgebland. Do you want him back?’
He shook his head. He seemed remarkably unmoved by my confession, but I suppose he had always suspected that I was Ealdred’s killer and, besides, he had far greater problems to face. ‘I always feared that if Guthfrith died you would take Northumbria’s throne.’
‘Me!’ I laughed. ‘Why would I want that trouble?’
He paced the rugs, sometimes glancing at the scrap of linen. He finally stopped to stare down at the linen. ‘My fear,’ he said, ‘is that God will punish me.’
‘For what?’
‘My sins,’ he said quietly.
‘God let you become king,’ I said forcefully, ‘he let you make peace with Hywel, he let you invade Scotland, and he’s let you finish what your grandfather began.’
‘Almost finish. And I could lose it all in one day. Maybe that will be God’s punishment?’
‘Why would your god favour Anlaf over you?’
‘To punish me for pride.’
‘Anlaf is proud too,’ I said.
‘He is the devil’s creature.’
‘Then your god should fight him, destroy him.’
He started pacing again. ‘Constantine is a good Christian.’
‘Then why is he allied to a pagan?’
He stopped and gave me a wry smile. ‘It seems I am too.’
‘Pagans,’ I said, ‘me and Egil Skallagrimmrson.’
‘He’ll fight for us?’
‘He will.’
‘Small mercies,’ Æthelstan said softly.
‘How many men do you have?’ I asked.
‘Just over a thousand West Saxons,’ he said, ‘and sixteen hundred Mercians. Your men too, of course, and more are arriving every day.’
‘The fyrd?’ I asked. The fyrd was the army raised from the country, an army of ploughmen, foresters, and peasants.
‘A thousand,’ he said, ‘but God knows what use they’ll be against Anlaf’s men.’
‘Even with the fyrd,’ I said, ‘you’re probably going to have fewer men than Anlaf, but you can still win.’
‘How?’ he demanded sharply. ‘Simply by fighting more savagely than they do?’
‘By fighting more cleverly than they do,’ I said, and picked up the lump of charcoal and sketched some new lines on the linen, explaining as I went. ‘That,’ I finished, ‘is how you can win.’
He gazed at the crude drawing. ‘So why didn’t you show that to Æthelwyn and the others?’
‘Because if a dozen men know what you plan before the battle then they will tell another dozen men, and they will then tell others. How long before Anlaf also knows?’
He nodded acceptance of that, still staring at the linen. ‘And if I lose?’ he asked quietly.
‘There will be no Englaland.’
He still looked down at the changes I had made on the map. ‘Archbishop Wulfhelm tells me that God wanted me to be king,’ he said quietly. ‘I forget that sometimes.’
‘Trust your god,’ I said, ‘and trust your troops. They’re fighting for their homes, for their wives, for their children.’
‘But fighting in a place Anlaf chooses?’
‘And if you beat him in a place of his choosing then you humiliate him, you will prove to be what you say you are, Monarchus Totius Brittaniae.’
He gave a brief smile. ‘You appeal to my pride, lord?’
‘Pride is good in a warrior,’ I said.
He looked up at me and for a heartbeat I saw the child I had raised, a child constantly in fear of his life, but a child with courage. ‘You really think we can win?’ he asked.
I dared not let my doubts show. I tapped the linen map. ‘Do what I advise you, lord King, and by month’s end you will be the monarch of all Britain and the streams of Wirhealum will run thick with the blood of your enemies.’
He paused, then nodded. ‘Ride for Ceaster at dawn, lord. I will give you my decision before you leave.’
I went into the night, but before I dropped the tent’s flap behind me I saw he had fallen to his knees and was praying.
It started to rain.
Steapa rode with us next day. He looked old. He was still a huge man with a frightening face and the air of a warrior who would resort to violence at the smallest slight. I had been scared of him when we first met, but had learned that beneath his grim exterior was a kind soul. His hair and beard were white now, and his skull-face was deeply creased, but he still mounted his horse easily, and still carried a great sword that had begun its life slaughtering Alfred’s enemies. ‘It should have killed you too,’ he growled when I greeted him.
‘You were never good enough,’ I said. ‘You were too slow. You moved like a haystack.’
‘I was just giving you a chance.’
‘Funny, I was giving you one too.’ We had fought all those years ago on Alfred’s command. The fight was supposed to establish my guilt or innocence, but it had been interrupted by Guthrum’s invading forces. The fight had never finished, though I had never forgotten my fear of facing Steapa, even after we became friends. ‘Maybe we’d better finish the fight,’ I suggested. ‘You’d be easy to beat now. Slow and old.’
‘Old! Me? Have you seen yourself? You look like something the dog chewed and spat out.’
He was riding with us because Æthelstan had been beset with doubts through the night and had sent Steapa to look at Anlaf’s chosen battlefield. ‘If Steapa agrees with you,’ the king had told me at dawn, ‘then tell Anlaf we’ll meet him there.’ I had not argued. The decision, in the end, belonged only to Æthelstan, and I was only surprised he had chosen Steapa to accompany us. I would have expected one of the younger ealdormen, but Æthelstan had chosen Steapa for good reasons. ‘He’s fought more battles than any of us,’ Æthelstan had told me in the dawn, ‘he’s fought as many as you! And he knows how to use ground, and he won’t let you persuade him if he disagrees.’
‘And if you disagree?’ I asked Steapa as we rode northwards.
‘We beat the bastard somewhere else. But I’m glad to be out of that lot,’ he jerked his grizzled head to indicate Æthelstan’s army. ‘Too many bloody churchmen and young lordlings who think they shit lavender instead of turds.’
Æthelstan would be marching north behind us, but he would not cross the Dee unless Steapa assured him the battlefield was a good choice. If Steapa disliked the land between the streams on Wirhealum then Æthelstan would destroy the Roman bridge across the Dee, leave Ceaster to its fate and move eastwards to find another place to confront the invaders.
‘It’ll be a bloody business wherever we fight
the bastards,’ Steapa said.
‘It will.’
‘I never liked fighting Norsemen. Mad buggers.’
‘I don’t suppose they like fighting you either,’ I said.
‘And the Irish Norse use arrows, I’m told.’
‘They do,’ Finan said curtly.
‘So do we,’ I put in.
‘But Anlaf will have more archers,’ Finan said. ‘They use bows a lot. They stand the archers behind the shield wall and make the sky rain arrows. So heads down, shields up.’
‘Jesus,’ Steapa grumbled.
I knew what he was thinking. He no more wanted to stand in another shield wall than I did. For all our long lives we had been fighting; fighting the Welsh, fighting other Saxons, fighting the Scots, fighting the Danes, fighting the Norse, and now fighting an alliance of Scots, Danes and Norsemen. It would be grim.
The Christians tell us we must have peace, that we should melt our swords to make ploughshares, yet I have yet to see a Christian king light the furnace to melt the battle-steel. When we fought Anlaf, whether it was on Wirhealum or deeper inside Mercia, we would also face Constantin’s men and Owain of Strath Clota’s warriors, and almost all of them were Christians. The priests on both sides would wail to their nailed god, calling down his help, screaming for vengeance and victory, and none of it made sense to me. Æthelstan could kneel to his god, but Constantin would be kneeling too, as would Owain. Did their nailed god really care who ruled Britain? I brooded on that as we hurried north, following the Roman road through intermittent showers that blew chill from the Welsh hills. And what of the Welsh? I was sure Anlaf had sent emissaries to Hywel and to the lesser Welsh kings, and they had reason enough to dislike Æthelstan who had forced them to bow the knee and pay tribute. Yet I suspected Hywel would do nothing. He might not like the Saxons, but he knew what horrors would descend on his country if Æthelstan released his army into the hills. Hywel would let the Norse and the Scots fight his old enemy, and if they won then he would seize what land he could, and if Æthelstan won, Hywel would smile across the frontier and quietly build up his strength.
‘You’re thinking, lord,’ Finan said accusingly. ‘I know that face.’
War Lord Page 28
