War of the Wolf

by Bernard Cornwell

  “And he has the úlfhéðnar.”

  “And I have this,” I showed him the jar that Brother Beadwulf had made for me so many weeks before. The jar’s wide top was stoppered with a plug of wood and sealed with wax.

  “What is it?”

  “An ointment that turns a man into an úlfheðinn. Henbane.”

  “Pig poison!” He hefted the jar. “How many men will this serve?”

  “I don’t know. A dozen?”

  “I tried it once,” he said ruefully, “and I was sick for a week.” He put the jar on the table, then stood and walked to the tavern door. It was nighttime and the street outside was lit by flaming torches. He leaned on the doorjamb, staring into the night. “There are times,” he said, “when I wish you’d never made me king.”

  “I know.”

  “I could have gone viking,” he said.

  “Maybe that’s what we should do,” I suggested. “Let Sköll be king, and you and I will live at Bebbanburg and keep a fleet. Think of all the new monasteries in Wessex! Great buildings stuffed with silver! We’ll be richer than kings!”

  He laughed. He knew I was not serious. “I paid a skald to look into the future,” he said suddenly and softly.

  I felt a shiver. “What did he say?”

  “It was a woman.”

  I touched Thor’s hammer. “And she said?”

  “She gave me back my silver.” He still spoke softly and I felt the shiver again. “She said the future was a mist and she could not see through it, but I think she did see and dared not tell me.” He turned to me. “Finan said you met Sköll’s sorcerer?”

  “We did, but he spoke nonsense,” I said dismissively. “He just said what Sköll wanted him to say.”

  “He talked of kings dying?”

  Finan, I thought, should have kept silent. “He talked nonsense,” I said forcibly, “he babbled about eagles and a king without a crown.” I had to steel myself not to touch the hammer as I spoke. Snorri had said three kings would go to the high place, and two would die. Sköll was one of the kings, Sigtryggr the second, and I was the third, the king without a crown. And two of us must die. Yet none of that made sense. Snorri had said that the Dane and the Saxon would betray me, and what had that to do with a war against the Norse? “It was nothing but nonsense,” I insisted.

  Sigtryggr came back to the table and sat. “Why did Sköll go to meet you?”

  I frowned, wondering if Sigtryggr suspected me of disloyalty. “To persuade me not to fight him, of course.”

  “Yes, but why? He knows he killed your daughter. What made him think you might give up a chance of revenge?”

  I suddenly understood what he was saying, and the realization struck me with the same force that the curse had made all those weeks before. I stared at Sigtryggr. “Because . . .” I began, then dared not say the words in case even speaking them made them untrue.

  “Because,” Sigtryggr spoke the words for me, “his sorcerer foretold that you would kill him.”

  “No,” I said, but without conviction.

  “Why else try to dissuade you?” he asked, then paused, but I said nothing. I gazed into the tavern’s fire where a log spat. “I can’t think why else he went to you,” Sigtryggr said.

  “We can’t know the future,” I said. “But I hope you’re right.”

  “Stiorra would have cast the runesticks,” he said wistfully. “She always said she could tell the future from the sticks.”

  “And Stiorra,” I said, “is why we must kill Sköll.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  As ever, a mention of my daughter tore at my heart. I wanted to talk of something else, anything else. “How’s Queen Eadgyth?” I asked.

  “Still pious,” he said curtly.

  “Like her brother and her grandfather.”

  “She doesn’t cry as much as she did. She endures me,” he said wryly, “and she even nags me!”

  “Nags you?”

  “She says I should wash more often. And you were right. She’s clever.”

  “So you like her,” I said, amused.

  “I feel sorry for her. She’s married to an unwashed king in a dying kingdom.”

  “Now you’re the one talking nonsense,” I said.

  But I feared he spoke the truth. Wyrd bið ful āræd.

  I could not sleep that night in Heagostealdes, and for a time I walked the small streets wondering if Sigtryggr was right in thinking that Sköll had only ridden to Bebbanburg because he feared his own sorcerer’s prophecy. I wanted to believe that and searched for an omen, but found none.

  There was a monastery in Heagostealdes, a surprisingly lavish building, and I heard singing as I neared it. The monastery’s outer gate was open and I walked to the big church from which candlelight leaked through a high arched doorway. I stood under the arch and saw that at least a hundred warriors were inside, kneeling on the flagstones with their heads bowed as they listened to the chanting of monks. Some went on their knees to the altar and kissed the white cloth, and I knew they were preparing themselves for death.

  “You can go in,” an amused voice spoke behind me.

  I turned and saw it was Father Swithred, the priest who had brought the message from Æthelhelm and who had ridden this far with us. In the morning he would carry on south to Mercia, while we struck westward.

  “I like listening,” I said.

  “It is a beautiful sound,” he agreed.

  I nodded at the candlelit nave. “You know who those men are?”

  “Warriors of Northumbria?”

  “Half are mine,” I said, “and the other half? Some of them follow Jarl Sihtric, others are sworn to King Sigtryggr.”

  “You want me to be impressed, lord,” he said drily, and for once he did not leave a pause before saying “lord.”

  “Do I?”

  “That Christians follow you, a pagan.”

  I shrugged. “They do.”

  “But what choice do you have?” Swithred asked. “If you refused to let Christians serve, then your armies would be weaker. They would be too weak. You keep your power, lord, because of Christians. You need Christian help.” He paused, wanting me to say something, but I kept silent. “Your son is in there, yes?” he asked, nodding at the kneeling men.

  “Probably.”

  “So one day, lord, Bebbanburg will be Christian too.”

  “But my son,” I said angrily, “will still employ pagans.”

  “Not if he’s a good son of the church, lord.”

  Swithred had never liked me and he had succeeded in nettling me. I touched the hammer at my breast. “None of us knows the future,” I said curtly, and thought of three kings in the place of the eagle.

  “But we do, lord,” Swithred said softly.

  “We do?”

  “We Christians know what is to come. Christ will return in His glory, the great horn of heaven will sound, the dead will rise, and the Kingdom of God will rule on earth. Of that much we can be certain.”

  “Or the sun will turn dark, the warriors of Valhalla will fight for the gods, and the world will fall into chaos,” I said. “Tell me something useful, priest, like what will happen three or four days from now.”

  “Three days, lord?”

  “We’re two days from Sköll’s stronghold,” I said, “so three or four days from now those warriors,” I nodded into the church, “will probably be fighting for their lives.”

  Swithred watched as the worshippers stood. The chanting had stopped and an elderly monk was standing in front of the altar, presumably to preach. “In three or four days, lord,” Swithred spoke low, “your men will fight to defeat a pagan tyrant. God will be on their side, and if God is with you, how can you lose?”

  “Have you ever assaulted a fortress?” I asked, but did not give him time to answer. “It’s the most brutal kind of fighting there is, worse even than a shield wall.” I touched my hammer again. “Go tell King Edward that our men will die to keep the promises we made him at
Tamweorthin.”

  “Ten days ago,” Swithred still spoke quietly, “the king fell from his horse while hunting.”

  I had thought that this meeting with Father Swithred had been an accident, but those last words told me he had wanted to find me. He had brought me the formal letter complaining of Sköll’s raids south of the Ribbel, but I now understood he had also brought a second message, one that could not be written down, and one that he had waited to deliver. “I’m surprised the king still hunts,” I said, “he looked an ill man to me.”

  “King Edward loves to hunt,” Swithred said.

  “Women or deer?” I asked.

  “Both,” he said sharply, surprising me with his honesty. “He fell from his horse,” he continued his tale, “and broke two ribs.”

  “Ribs mend,” I said, “it’s painful, though.” The elderly monk had begun preaching, but his voice was weak so I could not hear him, not that I wanted to, but the men in the church shuffled closer to listen, making it even less likely that anyone could overhear our conversation. One of the four tall candles on the altar had begun to gutter, spewing a tangle of dark smoke. If it goes out before the service ends, I thought, then we will fail. The flame must stay lit, I convinced myself, to prove that Sigtryggr was right in thinking that Snorri had foreseen Sköll’s death. If the candle went out, then Sigtryggr was wrong, we would fail, and Sköll would defeat us. I hated myself for such impulsive thoughts, for seeking an omen about life and death in the ordinary incidents of life, but how else could the gods talk to us without a sorcerer? I could not take my eyes from the struggling flame. “Have you ever broken a rib? I asked Swithred.

  He ignored the question. He had more important things to say. “The king is not well,” he said, “he has fevers. His flesh is bloated and his urine black.”

  “Because he fell from his horse?”

  “The accident has made his health worse. Much worse.”

  “How long does he have?” I asked brutally.

  “Who knows? A year, lord? Two years? A week?” Swithred did not seem offended by my question, nor particularly saddened at these forecasts of his king’s death. “We pray he recovers, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said with the same amount of sincerity that Swithred had used. The candle’s smoke thickened.

  “The king,” Swithred went on, speaking even lower now, “is being carried to Wintanceaster.” The candle flickered, but stayed alight. “He commanded Prince Æthelstan to remain in Tamweorthin.”

  “As ruler of Mercia?” I asked.

  “As the king’s loyal deputy,” Swithred said, and he was now speaking so low that I could hardly hear him. “The prince prays for his father daily.”

  Prays what, I wondered. That Edward would die? Æthelstan, I had come to realize, had an ambition as keen as any sword edge. “A son should pray for his father,” I said.

  Swithred ignored those dutiful words. “And the prince,” he continued in a voice that was scarce more than a whisper, “further prays that you will go south if you hear the news of King Edward’s death.”

  Those last words made me turn to him. So he knew of my oath to Æthelstan? We had agreed to keep that pact secret, but Swithred, who was one of Æthelstan’s confessors and who now gazed innocently into the abbey church, must have known what his words meant. “So Prince Æthelstan,” I said snidely, “needs pagan help?”

  “If the pagan advances God’s kingdom on earth, yes.” He paused, still gazing into the church. “If a tree must be cut down, lord,” he added, “the husbandman will use whatever ax is the sharpest.”

  I almost smiled at that. The husbandman was Æthelstan, the tree was Æthelhelm, and I was the ax. “And what of you?” I asked.

  “Me, lord?” Swithred turned to me with a puzzled look.

  “You admitted to me that you send reports to King Edward. Have you reported that Prince Æthelstan wants me to go south at Edward’s death?” I did not explain that going south meant killing Ealdorman Æthelhelm. I did not need to.

  “I have not told the king any such news,” Swithred said, “nor will I.”

  I frowned at him. “You’ve made your dislike of pagans very plain,” I said, “so how can you possibly approve of the prince’s request?”

  “Approve?” Swithred asked in a very bland voice. “I do not know why the prince should seek such an assurance, lord,” he said, lying through his teeth, “I am merely the messenger.”

  “Then tell Prince Æthelstan,” I said, “that I will keep my word.”

  “Thank you, lord,” he said, and, for the first time since he had met me, he sounded civil.

  I looked back into the church. The candle had guttered out.

  Then forth went the host, mighty in battle

  Spearmen in armor, following their lords,

  The host of the Northmen, eager were their blades.

  King Sigtryggr led them, strong in resolve . . .

  That is how a poet, a young priest from Eoferwic, began his description of our leaving Heagostealdes, which only proves that you can never trust a poet. He made it sound as if we rode out in good order, but in truth it was a shambles. Sigtryggr might have been strong in resolve, but he was also irritated and impatient, as packhorses were reloaded, ropes broke, men sheltered from a drizzling rain by waiting in the taverns where they demanded more ale, two of his jarls got into a fight over a missing horse and their followers turned it into a brawl that left two men dead and six wounded, and it was almost midday by the time the host went forth. Sigtryggr’s men were the vanguard, while mine brought up the rear, following the vast herd of packhorses. But, despite the weather and the delays, the mighty host of the Northmen was at last moving. With two women.

  There were probably many more women, there usually are, but these two made no attempt to conceal themselves among the boys and servants, instead they rode on gray horses and wore mud-spattered white robes. They were both young, perhaps about sixteen or seventeen years old, and wore their hair long and unbound like unmarried girls. “Dear Christ above,” Finan said when he saw them.

  They were led by a third extraordinary figure, Ieremias, dressed in his bishop’s finery, who galloped recklessly alongside my column waving frantically. “Lord, lord, lord,” he greeted me happily as he tried to curb his horse. “Whoa, Beelzebub. Whoa!” He finally brought the horse under control and smiled at me. “I have brought the angels, lord.”

  “Angels,” I said flatly.

  “Elwina and Sunniva, lord,” Ieremias said, gesturing at the two girls and plainly believing he had solved whatever problems I might have. “They are angels, lord,” he insisted, sensing my disbelief.

  “They look like women to me,” I said. Good-looking women too, which suggested the angels could cause trouble among my men.

  “You must look with the eyes of faith,” Ieremias chided me. “I could not let you ride against Sköll without the help of angels. God commanded me! He told me that even the stone of David will not give you victory without my angels.” He paused, frowning. “You do still have the stone, lord?”

  “Of course I do,” I lied.

  “Then we shall smite mightily,” he said smugly.

  “I also have something from a pagan sorcerer,” I said to tease him.

  He stared at me in horror. “You have . . .” he paused and made the sign of the cross. “What do you have?”

  “A jar of ointment that turns men into wolves.”

  “No, lord, no! It is the devil’s unguent! You must give it to me!”

  “My servant has it,” I said carelessly. In truth I was not quite sure why I had brought the jar and certainly had no intention of trying the ointment, but I had still been reluctant to discard it.

  “I will protect you from Satan’s wiles, lord,” Ieremias said, “and my angels will stand guard over you.”

  I thought of sending him back to Lindisfarena, but on a chill spring day of drizzle his arrival, or at least the appearance of his two angels, had brought smiles to my
men’s faces. “Just keep your women safe,” I said, “I don’t want trouble.”

  “Lord,” he remonstrated, “there can be no trouble. Elwina and Sunniva are heavenly beings! And in heaven there is no marriage.”

  “I wasn’t talking about marriage.”

  “We shall all be chaste in heaven, lord!”

  “Chaste?” I asked. “And you call that heaven?” I gave him no time to answer. “Take your women, make sure they stay chaste, and ride with the baggage.”

  “We shall pray for you, lord,” Ieremias said, then beckoned his bedraggled angels to follow as he spurred ahead to join the servants and packhorses.

  “What does he want?” my son asked.

  “He’s bringing us angelic help.”

  “We need it,” he said, and so we did because we were making slow progress. The larger an army, I have found, the slower it moves as men try to keep to the tracks or stay on firmer ground, and so the column stretches, and, at any obstacle, it tangles itself, stops, and so stretches even further as the front of the column moves ahead. We were following the southern bank of the Lower Tine and the first few miles were easy enough as we rode through river meadows and past burned-out steadings, but low clouds misted the hilltops, which meant Sigtryggr’s scouts were forced to ride on the lower slopes. Our disordered column would have made easy meat if Sköll had horsemen on those hills, but the day passed without sight of an enemy.

  The clouds lifted in the late afternoon and with them went the steady drizzle that had been soaking us. My son rode with me most of the way and frowned as we passed yet another farm that was nothing but blackened ruin. “Sköll’s work?” he suggested.

  “More likely the Scots. Sköll needs all the food a farmer can grow.”

  “We’re south of the wall?” he asked.

  “We are.” I knew what he was thinking, that if we garrisoned the old Roman wall and its forts we would keep Scottish cattle-raiders well away from most of Northumbria’s farmlands, but, as I told him, we would need an army twenty times the size of this one just to man the forts. “Besides,” I went on, “if we garrison the wall it becomes our frontier and we give Constantin all the land north of it, including Bebbanburg. He’d like that.”