Conqueror

by Stephen Baxter

  The people dressed brightly, in tunics and leggings dyed yellow, red, black and blue. They wore cloaks against the winter cold, but the men kept them thrown back so one side of their bodies was always exposed, and they all carried at least one weapon, a sword, axe or knife. They were tall, well-muscled, intimidating - and you couldn’t tell at a glance who was Danish and who English.

  If the people were impressive, their homes were less so. Built on rough timber frames, they were roofed by ragged straw or turf, and their walls were of woven hazel or willow packed with mud or dung. The Danish occupation of Jorvik was only a dozen years old, so none of these huts was older than that - and yet, pounded by northern rains, their misshapen hulls were already slumping into the filthy earth.

  The amount of trade going on was astounding. The houses were built long and thin, crowding each other for frontage on the main streets. In the workshops behind these frontages tanners scraped and cobblers hammered, potters turned their wheels, and weavers treadled their looms with threads of wool weighted by pierced discs of fired clay. Leofgar the weapons dealer was on friendly terms with many of the smiths. In the houses open fronts wares of all sorts were displayed, from pottery and wooden tableware and jewellery to broiled rats sold to children for a clip from a silver coin. Outside the carpenters’ shops cups and plates were heaped up, wheel-turned from blocks of ash, dozens of them all but identical to each other, remarkable if you were used to hand-made goods. Cynewulf was very struck by one store that sold nothing but shoes, sewn from leather or moleskin, racked up on shelf after shelf like roosting birds.

  Ibn Zuhr fingered a pottery jug, deep crimson, symmetrical, well finished. He ignored the Danish jabber of the man who was trying to sell it to him. ‘Look at this. I haven’t seen anything of this quality since I was taken from Iberia. And I would guess that this is the first genuine city, as a Greek or a Moor would understand it, to be functioning in Britain since the Caesars. All in a decade!’ Ibn Zuhr seemed fascinated, in his cold, supercilious way. ‘The Danes, you know, have trading links from Ireland to the Baltic, from Greenland to Iberia. Under them, trade is booming, within the country as well as beyond.’

  ‘The Danish trade can boom all it likes,’ growled Arngrim, ‘until Alfred comes here and lops off its head like a weed. And then we’ll get back to the old ways.’

  Ibn Zuhr the slave could only agree with his master.

  Leofgar led the party to the city’s heart, where the shells of many Roman buildings still stood. It was quiet here, away from the bustle of the Danish markets. Cynewulf curiously walked inside the immense walls of what Leofgar called the principia, once the headquarters of a Roman legion, a mighty structure that could still be seen for miles around. Though now its roof had collapsed, leaving heaps of smashed tiles, the principia had stood, without maintenance, for four hundred years. Leofgar said that the Emperor Constantine had been elevated to the purple in this very building, accompanied by lightning strikes, flights of birds, crosses in the sky and other miracles. Cynewulf was a natural sceptic, and found it very hard to believe that the mightiest emperor of them all could have had anything much to do with Britain - and certainly not Northumbria, this dismal corner. But Leofgar seemed to enjoy the fantasy. Now the ground was being cleared of its paving stones, and bodies planted in the exposed earth. Thus a Roman principia was being turned into a pagan cemetery.

  Near the south-western corner of the principia, Cynewulf found a small stone-built chapel. This was actually a famous church, if you knew any Northumbrian history, built on the site of a wooden chapel set up here by King Edwin on the occasion of his conversion two centuries before. It was crudely built, and looked like a toy set beside the tremendous wall of the Roman ruin. But, neatly laid out on an east-to-west axis unlike the principia, it was unmistakably Christian. And where the principia was doomed to decay and demolition this small chapel was surely the seed of grander minsters to rise up in the future.

  The little church was just too tempting. Overwhelmed by his journey and all he had seen, Cynewulf begged leave of his companions and went inside to pray.

  IX

  Arngrim’s party lodged with a cheerful, huge-armed English woman called Gytha. A widow, she made a living collecting scrap metal, which she sold on to the smiths, or direct to dealers like Leofgar. They were to stay here while Leofgar made his inquiries about Aebbe.

  Gytha’s house was only one room, with doors in all four walls and benches around the walls, and a big hearth of reused Roman stone. The roof was just beams and planks laid over the mud walls, with thatch piled on top to keep in the warmth. When Cynewulf looked out the back he saw an open cesspit, not yards from where he would be sleeping. Gytha kept geese, and the floor of the house was slick with their dung. Pigs came wandering in too, dark, skinny, long-legged little beasts.

  A narrow staircase led down to a cellar where Gytha stored her ‘scrap metal’. Cynewulf made out slit-open chain-mail, crushed helmets and broken swords, much of it splashed by brown blood. He tried not to judge Gytha over her corpse-robbing. After eighty years of the Northmen England was littered with bones, and he would be wrong to condemn a woman alone for trying to make a living. It was disturbing to think, though, that these bloody weapons and bits of broken armour would likely be forged into devices devoted to yet more killing.

  Cynewulf studied Ibn Zuhr as he poked around the house. ‘I have heard you talk of the need for cleanliness. How does this make you feel?’

  ‘The customs of this country, and yours, are not my concern.’

  ‘Speak freely, man. I want to know.’

  Ibn Zuhr eyed him. ‘You eliminate body waste without modesty. You do not wash after eating or after sex. You are all so filthy that sleeping next to a cess pit hardly makes a difference.’ He smiled. ‘Otherwise your country is a delight.’

  During that first night, as they all huddled in heaps of blankets around the dying fire, it become apparent that Leofgar’s relationship with Gytha was more than just commerce. Arngrim laughed in the dark, and offered his friend encouragement. ‘Keep it up, Leofgar, your pipe will be pumping any moment.’

  Leofgar’s noisy ploughing made it impossible for Cynewulf to sleep. What made it worse yet was that the sounds and smells of their earthy passion worked their way into Cynewulf’s head, and he grew an erection so hard it seemed to suck the very essence out of his soul. At last he reached under his blanket and, whispering prayers for forgiveness, relieved himself with a couple of brisk motions. It was an act that brought no pleasure, only shame, and in the morning he felt sure the others knew what he had done - especially Arngrim, who grinned at him as if they shared a joke.

  He felt the painful shame of those moments in the dark even more later that day, when Leofgar brought home Aebbe.

  She stood in Gytha’s house - she refused to sit. She wore a grimy tunic that had been torn and crudely repaired. Her feet were bare, there were bruises on her arms and bare thighs, her hair was a mat of filth, and one cheek was puffed up and bloody.

  ‘She wasn’t hard to track down,’ said the blunt trader. ‘Guthrum’s boys are the only Danes still fighting, and his hoard of slaves and booty made quite a splash when it reached town.’

  Leofgar said that Aebbe had been sold in a batch of a dozen girls from Cippanhamm to a dealer who planned to ship them overseas. Fair English girls sold well in the east. Aebbe, though, was ‘too damaged’ to fetch much of a price. This phrase made Cynewulf shudder. It seemed the dealer had bought her without a close inspection; feeling cheated, he had taken out his rage on the girl. Then he sold her anyhow. She was strong, stocky, and a farmer took her at a knock-down price to work as a labourer. And it was from the farmer that Leofgar had been able to buy her back, though at a premium.

  Leofgar winced. ‘Everybody made a profit on this girl except me, it seems.’

  Cynewulf approached the girl, full of shame. He had betrayed her; after all he had brought her to the King’s hall where he had promised she would be safe. But
he must speak to her. ‘Aebbe. It is me, Cynewulf. Do you remember me?’

  ‘I have lost much, priest, but not my mind,’ she said dully.

  ‘And you remember the Menologium—’

  ‘I haven’t lost my memory either.’ She looked up, defiant.

  Cynewulf thought he knew what she was thinking: that he wanted her only for what was in her mind, just as other men had wanted her only for the dark space between her thighs, not for her. ‘And will you come back with me, to Wessex? For the prophecy may yet be of great value.’

  ‘Why should I? My great-grandmother was right. All men are fools and cowards or worse. Why should I help you?’

  ‘Because your King commands it,’ Leofgar rumbled.

  ‘But my King,’ she said, ‘failed me.’

  Arngrim said, ‘Leofgar told us you had been damaged.’

  ‘They used me,’ Aebbe said. ‘The Danes. And some of the other girls, and a few boys. But with me, he had a little fun. I think it was because he saw me with you, thegn, who he fought in the hall.’

  ‘Fun?’ The word seemed monstrous even as Arngrim spoke it.

  She pulled up her tunic, exposing her belly and breasts. The wounds were livid, still barely healed. ‘You can see the crucifix he drew with his knife,’ she said. ‘And these letters, copied from a scrap of a burned Bible. Here he heated the knife in the fire, so when he—’

  ‘Enough.’ Gytha stepped forward, and with firm, motherly motions covered the girl up.

  ‘By Woden’s balls,’ Leofgar growled, ‘a bit of humping is one thing. We’ve all done that, I think. But this—’

  ‘I will treat her,’ Ibn Zuhr murmured. ‘To ensure there is no infection.’

  Cynewulf, thinking of his own lustful weakness last night, was consumed by shame - as if he had done this to her himself.

  ‘Who did it?’ Arngrim asked. ‘Who was he, Aebbe?’

  ‘The leader,’ she said. ‘He was at Cippanhamm. They called him Egil.’

  Arngrim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Egil son of Egil. The Beast of Cippanhamm.’

  ‘There is something more,’ Aebbe said.

  ‘What?’

  She turned to Cynewulf. ‘You want me for the prophecy in my head. But Egil has it. An ancient copy of it, written down. I saw it.’

  Cynewulf was astonished. ‘How is this possible?’

  Aebbe shrugged. ‘I only overheard fragments. Boasting to his companions when he was drunk. A Norse ancestor of his called Bjarni went to Lindisfarena, on the very first raid, Egil said, though I didn’t believe that. And Bjarni stole the prophecy, along with much gold from the monks.’

  Arngrim asked, ‘And what does he do with it? I can’t imagine a man like the Beast working out lists of dates.’

  ‘He cannot read it. But he is protected by its magic, he thinks. He believes he cannot die.’

  ‘Which helps explain why he behaves the way he does.’

  Cynewulf’s mind raced. He muttered, ‘In Boniface’s commentary - there is said to be a line in the fifth stanza, something about the Danes taking the prophecy for themselves - I could not understand it ...’

  Arngrim grinned, evidently enjoying Cynewulf’s discomfiture. ‘So, priest, whose prophecy is it, a pagan’s or a Christian’s?’

  Ibn Zuhr watched these exchanges, silent, fascinated.

  X

  It was late February by the time they got back to Wessex. Though the days were longer the icy grasp of winter still clung firmly to the land, and the open ground seemed to suck the heat out of Cynewulf’s body.

  They crept past Cippanhamm in the night. The Danish Force was still wintering there.

  They camped in a stand of wood, their horses tethered. They laid out blankets over leaves heaped up on the damp ground, and huddled together under their cloaks, pooling their warmth. They dare not strike a fire, so close to the Danes. Arngrim had shot a rabbit with his arrow earlier that day, but there had been no chance to cook it, and they tore at the bare flesh with their teeth, blood trickling over their chins.

  So here they were, Cynewulf thought: Arngrim, Ibn Zuhr, Aebbe, Cynewulf, a thegn, a Moor slave, a freedwoman and a priest. But nobody looking at them from the outside could have detected the differing shapes of their souls. They were just four animals, huddling on heaps of leaves in the forest’s sinister dark, eating raw meat like dogs.

  This night, though, the Danes were unhappy. There was a stink of burning, and the cries of running men. Cynewulf detected exhaustion, irritation - and fear.

  Cynewulf could sense a grin in Arngrim’s voice as he whispered in the dark, ‘Do you hear those Danes scuttle? Alfred’s men are at work.’

  Cynewulf, cold, dirty, hungry, depressed, hissed back, ‘I don’t see what there is to be cheerful about. Firing a few ships in the night, or burning down a food store or two, isn’t going to make much difference.’

  ‘You heard the fatigue; the Danes are losing sleep, night after night. These are pinpricks, but they are effective in a way.’

  ‘In my country,’ Ibn Zuhr said, his voice sinister, ‘we have ways to kill a man with pinpricks.’

  Arngrim whispered sternly. ‘In the spring - after Easter perhaps - when the weather turns, and the fyrd can be raised, the West Saxons will rally to their King.’

  ‘If he still lives,’ Cynewulf muttered, determinedly gloomy.

  ‘He must live,’ Ibn Zuhr said. ‘If not, there would be no raids. The nobles would be submitting to Guthrum, seeking to find the best positions they can in a new Dane-land.’

  ‘Alfred must live,’ Amgrim whispered. ‘And he must prevail.’ He reached out and clasped Cynewulf’s shoulder, hard enough to hurt. ‘And you, priest, have dragged us across the country in pursuit of a dream you believe will inspire Alfred to victory. Don’t lose your courage now!’ Cynewulf heard him moving in the dark, burying what was left of the rabbit carcass. ‘No more talk. We must try to sleep.’

  They huddled together for warmth, shifting, nudging each other, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard ground.

  Cynewulf felt the warm mass of Aebbe behind him, her belly pressed against his back, her bent knees against his thighs, the whisper of her breath on his neck. Suspicious of all men, she stayed closer to the priest than to Arngrim or Ibn Zuhr, as if she distrusted him the least. Once such a presence would have filled him with helplessly sinful thoughts. But the harm that had been done to her by other men seemed to have scoured the last of his youthful lust from his body. Perhaps it made him a better priest, he thought, if, he felt wistfully, less of a man.

  Her breath soon settled into the gentle rhythms of sleep. Since they had set off from Jorvik she had spoken not a single word.

  It was a murky noon, two days later, when they returned to the boggy ground to which Alfred had fled, on that dismal night after the Twelve Days assault.

  Before they found Aethelingaig, others found them. A party of a dozen men came riding over the broken ground, the legs of their horses heavy with mud. They had their cloaks thrown back, so their swords and axes were exposed.

  Arngrim had his party dismount. ‘Stand apart. Drop your cloaks to the ground. Keep your hands empty.’

  Cynewulf’s heart thumped as he complied. ‘Are they Danes?’

  ‘West Saxons. I think I recognise the lead man. That’s not to say they won’t run us through if we give them cause.’

  The leader, a burly young fellow with a thick black beard, drew his sword and pointed it at Amgrim’s chest. He called out, speaking in Danish, ‘Who are you? What is your business here?’

  Arngrim answered in his own tongue, ‘I am English. So are my companions, save the Moor, who is my slave. I am Arngrim, son of Arngrim, thegn to Alfred. I think I know you.’

  The man’s eyes narrowed. ‘My name is Ordgar.’

  ‘Yes. You are Aethelnoth’s man.’ He glanced back at the priest.

  ‘Aethelnoth is the ealdorman of the shire. If he is still supporting the King, it is good news.’

  Or
dgar kept his blade pointing square at Arngrim’s chest. ‘Why do you come to this place?’

  ‘We seek the King. The Danes took this woman.’ He indicated Aebbe. ‘We have brought her back.’

  Ordgar frowned, suspicious again. ‘Why?’

  Arngrim hesitated. ‘It may be best if you hear it from the King. We were with Alfred in his hall, during the Twelve Nights. We were there when the Danes raided. I myself stood before their leader—’

  ‘Egil. I remember you.’ Ordgar lowered his sword, and Cynewulf let out a breath. ‘Men still talk of you that night, Arngrim son of Arngrim. You stood your ground.’

  Arngrim grinned. ‘Actually I stood on a table. We have been away some weeks. What is the news?’

  ‘Not good. Guthrum has occupied much of Wessex. He is stretched thin, and Alfred’s assaults keep the Force pinned down. But they take animals - they even slaughter the pregnant ewes - they turn folk out of their cottages and feed the thatch to their horses.’