War Lord

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘Bring him. And Aldwyn?’

  ‘Lord?’

  ‘You stay behind the wall, well behind. There’ll be arrows flying, so stay out of range. If I need you, I’ll call you. Now fetch the horse.’

  We would be the first of Æthelstan’s men to cross the bridge onto the battlefield. He had asked me to hold the right flank, hard against the deeper stream. We expected the hardest fight to be on the left flank where Anlaf would unleash his wild Norse warriors, but the right flank would be hit hard too, because whoever faced us would be eager to break our shield wall and so pour men behind Æthelstan’s battle line.

  I placed Egil and his men next to the stream, then arrayed the men of Bebbanburg in four ranks, and to their left Sihtric formed his warriors. Beyond them, in the long centre of his line, Æthelstan placed the men of Mercia, while his left wing, which we suspected would face Anlaf’s own Norsemen, was trusted to five hundred of his West Saxon warriors.

  A shower gusted from the west, lasted two or three minutes, and blew over. I advanced my line fifteen paces. No enemy was visible yet and I suspected Anlaf was assembling his army beyond the low crest that spanned the valley, ready to reveal them in one frightening advance, but as we waited I had the men in my rearmost rank use their seaxes to dig holes and to cut swathes of the long wet grass. Each hole was about the breadth of two hands and three hand’s breadth deep, and all were filled with the cut grass. The enemy would be watching us even if we could not see them, but I doubted they would understand what we were doing, and even if they did the men attacking us would be concentrating only on our shields and blades. When the holes were dug and well hidden we retreated the fifteen paces.

  I was behind the line, mounted on Snawgebland. Egil and Sihtric were also on horseback, and both had kept a dozen men well back from the shield wall to serve as reinforcements. I had Finan with twenty men behind. Those were perilously small numbers to throw into a broken shield wall, but all of Æthelstan’s army was stretched thin. I also had two dozen archers with their hunting bows. I was reluctant to deploy more. The arrows would force the enemy to lower their heads and raise their shields, but in a clash of shield walls it was the blades in men’s hands that did the killing.

  Æthelstan himself was riding along the front of the line, accompanied by Bishop Oda and six mounted warriors. Æthelstan looked glorious. His horse was caparisoned with a scarlet saddle cloth, his spurs were gold, his horse’s bridle was trimmed with gold, and his helmet was ringed with a golden crown. He wore a scarlet cloak over shining mail, had a gold cross on his breast, while his sword scabbard was all gold, a gift that had been given to his father by Alfred. He was talking to his troops, and I remembered his grandfather doing the same at Ethandun. Alfred had seemed more nervous of making that speech than he was of the battle itself and I could still see him, a slender man in a worn blue cloak, talking in a high-pitched voice and slowly finding the right words. Æthelstan had more confidence, the words came easily to him, and I rode to join him as he came to our troops. I steered Snawgebland carefully to avoid the scatter of holes, then bowed my head to the king. ‘Lord King,’ I said, ‘welcome.’

  He smiled. ‘I see you’re wearing a cross, Lord Uhtred,’ he said loudly, nodding towards Benedetta’s gold ornament, ‘and that pagan bauble too?’

  ‘This bauble, lord King,’ I said just as loudly, ‘has seen me through more battles than I can count. And we won them all.’

  My men cheered that and Æthelstan let them cheer, then told them they fought for their homes, for their wives, for their children. ‘Above all,’ he finished, ‘we fight for peace! We fight to drive Anlaf and his followers away from our land, to teach the Scots that to trespass on our land is to gain nothing but graves.’ I noted how he did not appeal to the Christians, but was aware that here, on his right wing, he had Norsemen and Danes fighting for him. ‘Say your prayers,’ he said, ‘and fight as you know how to fight, and your god will keep you, he will preserve you, and he will reward you. As will I.’

  They cheered him, and Æthelstan gave me a quizzical look as if asking how he had done. I smiled. ‘Thank you, lord King,’ I said.

  He led me a few paces away from my men. ‘Your Norsemen will stay true?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘That worries you?’

  ‘It worries some of my men. Yes, it worries me.’

  ‘They will stay true, lord King,’ I said, ‘and if I’m wrong then Bebbanburg is yours.’

  ‘If you’re wrong,’ he said, ‘then we’re all dead.’

  ‘They will stay true. I swear it.’

  He glanced down at my chest. ‘The cross?’

  ‘Woman’s sorcery, lord. It belongs to Benedetta.’

  ‘Then I pray the sorcery protects you. All of us. Steapa is ready, so all we must do is hold the enemy firm.’

  ‘And win, lord King.’

  ‘That too,’ he said, ‘that too,’ then turned to ride back along the line.

  And just then the enemy came.

  We heard them first.

  There was a dull hammer blow that seemed to shudder across the heath. It was the sound of a drum, a huge war drum, and it was beaten three times and the third stroke was the signal for the enemy to start clashing blades on shields. They shouted, and all the time that great drum beat like the heart of a monstrous unseen beast. Most of my men had been sitting, but now they stood, brought their shields up and stared at where the road vanished over the low crest.

  The noise was massive, yet still the enemy was hidden. The first we saw of them was their standards appearing above the crest, a long line of flags showing eagles, falcons, wolves, axes, ravens, swords, and crosses. ‘We have the Scots,’ Finan said to me. Their blue flags were on the enemy’s left and meant that Constantine’s men would assault my shield wall. Anlaf’s soaring falcon was on the enemy’s right and confirmed what we had expected, that his main assault would be against our left.

  ‘Fate has been good to us!’ I called to my men. ‘It’s sent us the Scots! How many times have we beaten them? And they’ll see we’re the wolves of Bebbanburg and they’ll be scared!’

  We talk nonsense before battles, necessary nonsense. We tell our men what they want to hear, but the gods decide what will happen.

  ‘Fewer archers, perhaps?’ Finan muttered. The Scots did use archers, but not many. I looked up at the sky and saw that the clouds were thickening to the west. Perhaps it would rain again? A downpour would weaken the threat of archers. ‘And are you sure you want your son in the front rank?’ Finan asked.

  I had placed my son, my only son I realised with a pang, at the centre of my men. ‘He has to be there,’ I said. He had to be there because he would be the next Lord of Bebbanburg and he must be seen to take the same risks as the men he would lead. There was a time when I would have been there, at the head and centre of my men’s shield wall, but age and sense had kept me behind the line. ‘He has to be there,’ I said again, then added, ‘but I’ve put good men beside him.’ Then I forgot my son’s peril because the enemy appeared across the skyline.

  Horsemen came first, a long scattered line of perhaps a hundred men, some carrying the triangular standards of the Norse, and behind them came the shield wall. A vast wall, stretching across the valley with shields of every colour, the blackshields of Strath Clota next to Constantine’s Scots, and above the wall the weak sun reflected from a forest of spearheads. The enemy stopped at the top of the crest, beating their shields, roaring defiance, and I knew every one of my men was trying to count their numbers. It was impossible, of course, they were packed too tight, but I reckoned there had to be at least five thousand men facing us.

  Five thousand! Perhaps it was fear that made the enemy look more numerous, and I did feel fear as I watched that horde of men beat their shields and shout their insults. I reminded myself that Guthrum had brought almost as many men to Ethandun and we had beaten them. And his men, like Owain of Strath Clota’s troops, had carrie
d black shields. Was that an omen? I remembered after the battle how the blood had not shown on the fallen black shields. ‘Looks like six ranks,’ Finan said, ‘maybe seven?’

  We had three, with just a few men making the scanty fourth. And the enemy’s ranks would grow as the line advanced and was forced to shrink by the converging streams. It was never enough to kill the front rank of a shield wall, to break it we had to pierce all six ranks, or all seven, or however many faced us. My throat felt dry, my stomach sour, and a muscle in my right leg was twitching. I touched the silver hammer, searched the sky for an omen, saw none, and gripped the hilt of Serpent-Breath.

  The enemy was resting the lower rims of their round shields on the ground. Shields are heavy and a shield arm tires long before the sword arm. They were still beating swords and spear-hafts on the shields. ‘They’re not moving,’ Finan said, and I realised he was talking because he was nervous. We were all nervous. ‘They think we’ll attack them?’ he asked.

  ‘They hope we will,’ I grunted. Of course they hoped we would attack, trudging up the shallow slope of wet heathland, but though Anlaf doubtless thought Æthelstan was a fool to have accepted this battlefield he must have known we would stay on the lower ground. I could see their leaders riding up and down in front of the grounded shields, pausing to harangue the men. I knew what they would be saying. Look at your enemy, look how few they are! See how weak they are! See how easily we will shatter them! And think of the plunder that waits for you! The women, the slaves, the silver, the cattle, the land! I heard the bursts of cheering.

  ‘Lot of spears in the Scottish line,’ Finan said. I ignored him. I was thinking of Skuld, the Norn who waited at the foot of Yggdrasil, the giant ash tree that supports our world, and I knew Skuld’s shears would be sharp. She cuts the threads of our lives. Some men believed Skuld left Yggdrasil during a battle to fly above the fighting, deciding who will live and who will die, and again I looked up as if expecting to see an ash-grey woman, massively winged, with shears bright as the sun, but all I saw were grey clouds spreading. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Finan muttered and I looked back to see horsemen cantering down the gentle slope towards us.

  ‘Ignore them!’ I called to my men. The approaching horsemen were the fools who craved single combat. They came to taunt us and to seek fame. ‘Leave your shields resting,’ I shouted, ‘and ignore them!’

  Ingilmundr was among the men who came to challenge us. In his right hand he carried Bone-Carver, his sword, its blade shining. He saw me and swerved towards my men. ‘You’ve come to die, Lord Uhtred?’ he called. His horse, a black stallion, came close to the hidden holes we had dug, but he turned away at the last moment to ride along the line of my troops. He looked magnificent, his mail polished, his cloak white, his bridle glinting with gold, his helmet crowned with the wing of a raven. He was smiling. He pointed Bone-Carver towards me. ‘Come and fight, Lord Uhtred!’ I turned to look across the stream, pointedly ignoring him. ‘You lack courage? So you should! Today is the day of your death. All of you! You are sheep, ripe for slaughter.’ He saw Egil’s triangular banner with its eagle. ‘And you Norsemen,’ he was speaking in Norse now, ‘you think the gods will love you today? They will reward you with pain, with agony, with death!’

  Someone in Egil’s ranks let out a resounding fart, which provoked raucous laughter. Then the men began beating their shields, and Ingilmundr, failing to goad anyone to face him, turned his horse and cantered towards the Mercian troops to our left. None of those men would be goaded either. They stood silent, shields resting, watching the enemy who taunted them. A horseman carrying the black shield of Owain’s men came to look at us. He said nothing, spat towards our line, then turned away. ‘He was counting us,’ Finan said.

  ‘He didn’t need many fingers,’ I said.

  How long did we stand there? It seemed an age, but for the life of me I cannot remember whether it was a few minutes or an hour. None of us rode out to accept the enemy’s challenges, Æthelstan had ordered us to ignore them, and so the young fools mocked us, rode their stallions proudly, and we just waited. The sky clouded over and a spatter of rain swept in from the sea. Some of my men sat. They shared flasks of ale. A Mercian priest came to my ranks and some of the men knelt to him as he touched their foreheads and muttered a prayer.

  Anlaf plainly hoped we would advance on him, but he must have known that we were not such fools. If we attacked his line we would have to extend ours to fill the widening gap between the streams, and our ranks would thin still further. And we would have to advance uphill, which meant that the battle was his to begin, but he also waited, hoping we would become ever more frightened, ever more overawed by the number of warriors he had brought to the field.

  ‘Bastards are rearranging themselves,’ Finan said, and I saw that the Scots on the extreme left of the enemy line were moving men. Some who had been in the centre of the front rank were being ordered to the edges, while others took their places. ‘Eager, aren’t they?’ I asked, then called to Egil. ‘Svinfylkjas, Egil!’

  ‘I see it!’

  A svinfylkjas was what we called a swine-wedge because it was shaped like the tusk of a boar. The enemy, instead of crashing their shield wall into ours, were putting their strongest men and best fighters into three groups and, as they neared us, those groups would make wedges that would try to burst through our shield wall like boar tusks ripping through wattle fencing. If it worked it would be quick and savage, tearing bloody gaps in our shield wall that the Scots would widen and so get behind Æthelstan’s line. Constantine no doubt knew that Anlaf’s plan was to break our left, but he wanted his share of the glory and so was forming his most formidable warriors into swine-wedges that he would hurl onto my men in the hope of breaking our right before the Norsemen shattered the left.

  ‘Trust in God!’ a voice called and I saw Bishop Oda riding from the Mercians to call to my men. ‘If God is with us, none can prevail against us!’

  ‘Half of these men are pagans,’ I told him as he came close.

  ‘Odin will protect you!’ he called, now in his native Danish. ‘And Thor will send a mighty thunderbolt to destroy that rabble!’ He curbed his horse close to mine and smiled. ‘Is that better, lord?’

  ‘I approve, lord Bishop.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he spoke very low, ‘about your son.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said bleakly.

  ‘He was a brave man, lord.’

  ‘Brave?’ I asked, remembering my son’s fear.

  ‘He defied you. That takes bravery.’

  I did not want to talk about my son. ‘When the fighting starts, lord Bishop,’ I said, ‘stay well back. The Norse like to use arrows, and you’re a tempting target.’ He wore his bishop’s robes, embroidered with crosses, though I could see there was a mail coat showing at his neckline.

  He smiled. ‘When the fighting starts, lord, I shall stay with the king.’

  ‘Then make sure he doesn’t go into the front line.’

  ‘Nothing I can say will stop him. He’s ordered Prince Edmund to stay back.’ Edmund, Æthelstan’s half-brother, was the heir.

  ‘Edmund should fight,’ I said. ‘Æthelstan has nothing to prove, Edmund does.’

  ‘He’s a brave young man,’ Oda said. I grunted at that. I was not fond of Edmund, but in truth I had only known him as a petulant child and men now spoke well of him. ‘You saw the Scots rearrange themselves?’ Oda asked.

  ‘Did Æthelstan send you to ask me that?’

  He smiled. ‘He did.’

  ‘They’re making three svinfylkjas, lord Bishop,’ I did not need to explain the word to Oda, a Dane, ‘and we’re going to slaughter them.’

  ‘You sound confident, lord.’ He wanted reassurance.

  ‘I’m frightened, lord Bishop. I always am.’

  He flinched at those words. ‘But we will win!’ he insisted, though without much conviction. ‘Your son is in heaven now, lord, and though God already knew what is at stake here today, your son will have told
him more. We cannot lose! Heaven is on our side.’

  ‘You believe that?’ I asked him. ‘Aren’t there priests telling the Scots the same thing?’

  He ignored those questions. His hands were fidgeting on his reins. ‘Why are they waiting?’

  ‘To give us plenty of time to count them. To scare us.’

  ‘It works,’ he said very quietly.

  ‘Tell the king he has nothing to worry about on his right flank.’ I touched the hammer, hoping I was right, ‘And as for the rest? Pray.’

  ‘Unceasingly, lord,’ he said, then reached out and I gripped his hand. ‘God be with you, lord.’

  ‘And you, lord Bishop.’

  He rode back towards Æthelstan who was standing his horse at the centre of our line, surrounded there by a dozen of his household warriors. He was staring intently towards the enemy and I saw him suddenly jerk his reins so that his horse took a backwards step before he reached out and patted its neck. I turned to see what had startled him.

  The enemy had lifted their shields and lowered their spears.

  And were coming at last.

  The enemy came slowly, still beating blades against their shields. They came slowly because they wanted to keep their shield wall solid, their line as straight as possible. Yet they were nervous too. Even when you outnumber an enemy, when you hold the high ground, when victory is almost certain, the fear still grips you. The sudden lunge of a spear, the fall of an axe, the edge of a blade can kill even at the moment of triumph.