The Last Kingdom

by Bernard Cornwell

  I did not really understand what he was saying. “But Storri is always right?”

  “Storri is cautious. He won’t take risks, and Ubba, though he doesn’t know it, likes that.”

  “But the sticks are messages from the gods?”

  “The wind is a message from the gods,” Ravn said, “as is the flight of a bird, the fall of a feather, the rise of a fish, the shape of a cloud, the cry of a vixen, all are messages, but in the end, Uhtred, the gods speak in only one place.” He tapped my head. “There.”

  I still did not understand and was obscurely disappointed. “Could I read the sticks?”

  “Of course,” he said, “but it would be sensible to wait till you’re older. What are you now?”

  “Eleven,” I said, tempted to say twelve.

  “Maybe you’d best wait a year or two before reading the sticks. Wait till you’re old enough to marry, four or five years from now?”

  That seemed an unlikely proposition for I had no interest in marriage back then. I was not even interested in girls, though that would change soon enough.

  “Thyra, perhaps?” Ravn suggested.

  “Thyra!” I thought of Ragnar’s daughter as a playmate, not as a wife. Indeed, the very idea of it made me laugh.

  Ravn smiled at my amusement. “Tell me, Uhtred, why we let you live.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When Ragnar captured you,” he said, “he thought you could be ransomed, but he decided to keep you. I thought he was a fool, but he was right.”

  “I’m glad,” I said, meaning it.

  “Because we need the English,” Ravn went on. “We are few, the English are many, despite which we shall take their land, but we can only hold it with the help of Englishmen. A man cannot live in a home that is forever besieged. He needs peace to grow crops and raise cattle, and we need you. When men see that Earl Uhtred is on our side then they won’t fight us. And you must marry a Danish girl so that when your children grow they will be both Dane and English and see no difference.” He paused, contemplating that distant future, then chuckled. “Just make sure they’re not Christians, Uhtred.”

  “They will worship Odin,” I said, again meaning it.

  “Christianity is a soft religion,” Ravn said savagely, “a woman’s creed. It doesn’t ennoble men, it makes them into worms. I hear birds.”

  “Two ravens,” I said, “flying north.”

  “A real message!” he said delightedly. “Huginn and Muminn are going to Odin.”

  Huginn and Muminn were the twin ravens that perched on the god’s shoulders where they whispered into his ear. They did for Odin what I did for Ravn, they watched and told him what they saw. He sent them to fly all over the world and to bring back news, and the news they carried back that day was that the smoke from the Mercian encampment was less thick. Fewer fires were lit at night. Men were leaving that army.

  “Harvesttime,” Ravn said in disgust.

  “Does that matter?”

  “They call their army the fyrd,” he explained, forgetting for a moment that I was English, “and every able man is supposed to serve in the fyrd, but when the harvest ripens they fear hunger in the winter so they go home to cut their rye and barley.”

  “Which we then take?”

  He laughed. “You’re learning, Uhtred.”

  Yet the Mercians and West Saxons still hoped they could starve us and, though they were losing men every day, they did not give up until Ivar loaded a cart with food. He piled cheeses, smoked fish, newly baked bread, salted pork, and a vat of ale onto the cart and, at dawn, a dozen men dragged it toward the English camp. They stopped just out of bow shot and shouted to the enemy sentries that the food was a gift from Ivar the Boneless to King Burghred.

  The next day a Mercian horseman rode toward the town carrying a leafy branch as a sign of truce. The English wanted to talk. “Which means,” Ravn told me, “that we have won.”

  “It does?”

  “When an enemy wants to talk,” he said, “it means he does not want to fight. So we have won.”

  And he was right.

  THREE

  The next day we made a pavilion in the valley between the town and the English encampment, stretching two ships’ sails between timber poles, the whole thing supported by seal-hide ropes lashed to pegs, and there the English placed three high-backed chairs for King Burghred, King Æthelred, and Prince Alfred, and draped the chairs with rich red cloths. Ivar and Ubba sat on milking stools.

  Both sides brought thirty or forty men to witness the discussions, which began with an agreement that all weapons were to be piled twenty paces behind the two delegations. I helped carry swords, axes, shields, and spears, then went back to listen.

  Beocca was there and he spotted me. He smiled. I smiled back. He was standing just behind the young man I took to be Alfred, for though I had heard him in the night I had not seen him clearly. He alone among the three English leaders was not crowned with a circlet of gold, though he did have a large, jeweled cloak brooch that Ivar eyed rapaciously. I saw, as Alfred took his seat, that the prince was thin, long legged, restless, pale, and tall. His face was long, his nose long, his beard short, his cheeks hollow, and his mouth pursed. His hair was a nondescript brown, his eyes worried, his brow creased, his hands fidgety, and his face frowning. He was only nineteen, I later learned, but he looked ten years older. His brother, King Æthelred, was much older, over thirty, and he was also long faced, but burlier and even more anxious-looking, while Burghred, King of Mercia, was a stubby man, heavy bearded, with a bulging belly and a balding pate.

  Alfred said something to Beocca who produced a sheet of parchment and a quill, which he gave to the prince. Beocca then held a small vial of ink so that Alfred could dip the quill and write.

  “What is he doing?” Ivar asked.

  “He is making notes of our talks,” the English interpreter answered.

  “Notes?”

  “So there is a record, of course.”

  “He has lost his memory?” Ivar asked, while Ubba produced a very small knife and began to clean his fingernails. Ragnar pretended to write on his hand, which amused the Danes.

  “You are Ivar and Ubba?” Alfred asked through his interpreter.

  “They are,” our translator answered. Alfred’s pen scratched, while his brother and brother-in-law, both kings, seemed content to allow the young prince to question the Danes.

  “You are sons of Lothbrok?” Alfred continued.

  “Indeed,” the interpreter answered.

  “And you have a brother? Halfdan?”

  “Tell the bastard to shove his writing up his arse,” Ivar snarled, “and to shove the quill up after it, and then the ink until he shits black feathers.”

  “My lord says we are not here to discuss family,” the interpreter said suavely, “but to decide your fate.”

  “And to decide yours,” Burghred spoke for the first time.

  “Our fate?” Ivar retorted, making the Mercian king quail from the force of his skull gaze. “Our fate is to water the fields of Mercia with your blood, dung the soil with your flesh, pave it with your bones, and rid it of your filthy stink.”

  The discussion carried on like that for a long time, both sides threatening, neither yielding, but it had been the English who called for the meeting and the English who wanted to make peace and so the terms were slowly hammered out. It took two days, and most of us who were listening became bored and lay on the grass in the sunlight. Both sides ate in the field, and it was during one such meal that Beocca cautiously came across to the Danish side and greeted me warily. “You’re getting tall, Uhtred,” he said.

  “It is good to see you, father,” I answered dutifully. Ragnar was watching, but without any sign of worry on his face.

  “You’re still a prisoner, then?” Beocca asked.

  “I am,” I lied.

  He looked at my two silver arm rings which, being too big for me, rattled at my wrist. “A privileged prisoner,�
� he said wryly.

  “They know I am an ealdorman,” I said.

  “Which you are, God knows, though your uncle denies it.”

  “I have heard nothing of him,” I said truthfully.

  Beocca shrugged. “He holds Bebbanburg. He married your father’s wife and now she is pregnant.”

  “Gytha!” I was surprised. “Pregnant?”

  “They want a son,” Beocca said, “and if they have one…” He did not finish the thought, nor did he need to. I was the ealdorman, and Ælfric had usurped my place, yet I was still his heir and would be until he had a son. “The child must be born any day now,” Beocca said, “but you need not worry.” He smiled and leaned toward me so he could speak in a conspiratorial whisper. “I brought the parchments.”

  I looked at him with utter incomprehension. “You brought the parchments?”

  “Your father’s will! The land charters!” He was shocked that I did not immediately understand what he had done. “I have the proof that you are the ealdorman!”

  “I am the ealdorman,” I said, as if proof did not matter. “And always will be.”

  “Not if Ælfric has his way,” Beocca said, “and if he has a son then he will want the boy to inherit.”

  “Gytha’s children always die,” I said.

  “You must pray that every child lives,” Beocca said crossly, “but you are still the ealdorman. I owe that to your father, God rest his soul.”

  “So you abandoned my uncle?” I asked.

  “Yes, I did!” he said eagerly, plainly proud that he had fled Bebbanburg. “I am English,” he went on, his crossed eyes blinking in the sun, “so I came south, Uhtred, to find Englishmen willing to fight the pagans, Englishmen able to do God’s will, and I found them in Wessex. They are good men, godly men, stalwart men!”

  “Ælfric doesn’t fight the Danes?” I asked. I knew he did not, but I wanted to hear it confirmed.

  “Your uncle wants no trouble,” Beocca said, “and so the pagans thrive in Northumbria and the light of our Lord Jesus Christ grows dimmer every day.” He put his hands together as if in prayer, his palsied left hand quivering against his ink-stained right. “And it is not just Ælfric who succumbs. Ricsig of Dunholm gives them feasts, Egbert sits on their throne, and for that betrayal there must be weeping in heaven. It must be stopped, Uhtred, and I went to Wessex because the king is a godly man and knows it is only with God’s help that we can defeat the pagans. I shall see if Wessex is willing to ransom you.” That last sentence took me by surprise so that instead of looking pleased I looked puzzled, and Beocca frowned. “You didn’t hear me?” he asked.

  “You want to ransom me?”

  “Of course! You are noble, Uhtred, and you must be rescued! Alfred can be generous about such things.”

  “I would like that,” I said, knowing it was what I was supposed to say. “You should meet Alfred,” he said enthusiastically. “You’ll enjoy that!”

  I had no wish to meet Alfred, certainly not after listening to him whimper about a servant girl he had humped, but Beocca was insistent and so I went to Ragnar and asked his permission. Ragnar was amused. “Why does the squinty bastard want you to meet Alfred?” he asked, looking at Beocca.

  “He wants me to be ransomed. He thinks Alfred might pay.”

  “Pay good money for you!” Ragnar laughed. “Go on,” he said carelessly, “it never hurts to see the enemy close up.”

  Alfred was with his brother, some distance away, and Beocca talked to me as he led me toward the royal group. “Alfred is his brother’s chief helper,” he explained. “King Æthelred is a good man, but nervous. He has sons, of course, but both are very young…” His voice trailed away.

  “So if he dies,” I said, “the eldest son becomes king?”

  “No, no!” Beocca sounded shocked. “Æthelwold’s much too young. He’s no older than you!”

  “But he’s the king’s son,” I insisted.

  “When Alfred was a small boy,” Beocca leaned down and lowered his voice, though not its intensity, “his father took him to Rome. To see the pope! And the pope, Uhtred, invested him as the future king!” He stared at me as if he had proved his point.

  “But he’s not the heir,” I said, puzzled.

  “The pope made him heir!” Beocca hissed at me. Later, much later, I met a priest who had been in the old king’s entourage and he said Alfred had never been invested as the future king, but instead had been given some meaningless Roman honor, but Alfred, to his dying day, insisted the pope had conferred the succession on him, and so justified his usurpation of the throne that by rights should have gone to Æthelred’s eldest son.

  “But if Æthelwold grows up,” I began.

  “Then of course he might become king,” Beocca interrupted me impatiently, “but if his father dies before Æthelwold grows up then Alfred will be king.”

  “Then Alfred will have to kill him,” I said, “him and his brother.”

  Beocca gazed at me in shocked amazement. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “He has to kill them,” I said, “just like my uncle wanted to kill me.”

  “He did want to kill you. He probably still does!” Beocca made the sign of the cross. “But Alfred is not Ælfric! No, no. Alfred will treat his nephews with Christian mercy, of course he will, which is another reason he should become king. He is a good Christian, Uhtred, as I pray you are, and it is God’s will that Alfred should become king. The pope proved that! And we have to obey God’s will. It is only by obedience to God that we can hope to defeat the Danes.”

  “Only by obedience?” I asked. I thought swords might help.

  “Only by obedience,” Beocca said firmly, “and by faith. God will give us victory if we worship him with all our hearts, and if we mend our ways and give him the glory. And Alfred will do that! With him at our head the very hosts of heaven will come to our aid. Æthelwold can’t do that. He’s a lazy, arrogant, tiresome child.” Beocca seized my hand and pulled me through the entourage of West Saxon and Mercian lords. “Now remember to kneel to him, boy, he is a prince.” He led me to where Alfred was sitting and I duly knelt as Beocca introduced me. “This is the boy I spoke of, lord,” he said. “He is the ealdorman Uhtred of Northumbria, a prisoner of the Danes since Eoferwic fell, but a good boy.”

  Alfred gave me an intense look that, to be honest, made me uncomfortable. I was to discover in time that he was a clever man, very clever, and thought twice as fast as most others, and he was also a serious man, so serious that he understood everything except jokes. Alfred took everything heavily, even a small boy, and his inspection of me was long and searching as if he tried to plumb the depths of my unfledged soul. “Are you a good boy?” he finally asked me.

  “I try to be, lord,” I said.

  “Look at me,” he ordered, for I had lowered my eyes. He smiled when I met his gaze. There was no sign of the sickness he had complained of when I eavesdropped on him and I wondered if, after all, he had been drunk that night. It would have explained his pathetic words, but now he was all earnestness. “How do you try to be good?” he asked.

  “I try to resist temptation, lord,” I said, remembering Beocca’s words to him behind the tent.

  “That’s good,” he said, “very good, and do you resist it?”

  “Not always,” I said, then hesitated, tempted to mischief, and then, as ever, yielded to temptation. “But I try, lord,” I said earnestly, “and I tell myself I should thank God for tempting me and I praise him when he gives me the strength to resist the temptation.”

  Both Beocca and Alfred stared at me as if I had sprouted angel’s wings. I was only repeating the nonsense I had heard Beocca advise Alfred in the dark, but they thought it revealed my great holiness, and I encouraged them by trying to look meek, innocent, and pious. “You are a sign from God, Uhtred,” Alfred said fervently. “Do you say your prayers?”

  “Every day, lord,” I said, and did not add that those prayers were addressed to Odin.


  “And what is that about your neck? A crucifix?” He had seen the leather thong and, when I did not answer, he leaned forward and plucked out Thor’s hammer that had been hidden behind my shirt. “Dear God,” he said, and made the sign of the cross. “And you wear those, too,” he added, grimacing at my two arm rings that were cut with Danish rune letters. I must have looked a proper little heathen.

  “They make me wear them, lord,” I said, and felt his impulse to tear the pagan symbol off the thong, “and beat me if I don’t,” I added hastily.

  “Do they beat you often?” he asked.

  “All the time, lord,” I lied.

  He shook his head sadly, then let the hammer fall. “A graven image,” he said, “must be a heavy burden for a small boy.”

  “I was hoping, lord,” Beocca intervened, “that we could ransom him.”

  “Us?” Alfred asked. “Ransom him?”

  “He is the true ealdorman of Bebbanburg,” Beocca explained, “though his uncle has taken the title, but the uncle will not fight the Danes.”

  Alfred gazed at me, thinking, then frowned. “Can you read, Uhtred?” he asked.

  “He has begun his lessons,” Beocca answered for me. “I taught him, lord, though in all honesty he was ever a reluctant pupil. Not good with his letters, I fear. His thorns were prickly and his ashes spindly.”

  I said that Alfred did not understand jokes, but he loved that one, even though it was feeble as watered milk and stale as old cheese. But it was beloved of all who taught reading, and both Beocca and Alfred laughed as though the jest were fresh as dew at sunrise. The thorn, , and the ash, æ, were two letters of our alphabet. “His thorns are prickly,” Alfred echoed, almost incoherent with laughter, “and his ashes spindly. His b’s don’t buzz and his i’s—” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He had been about to say my i’s were crossed, then he remembered Beocca and he looked contrite. “My dear Beocca.”

  “No offense, my lord, no offense.” Beocca was still happy, as happy as when he was immersed in some tedious text about how Saint Cuthbert baptized puffins or preached the gospel to the seals. He had tried to make me read that stuff, but I had never got beyond the shortest words.