by Justin Hill
‘The man who presented a pirate ship to the king. That was a fine gift. Have you men to crew it?’
‘Of course,’ Wulfnoth said, and stiffened. ‘Though you are mistaken: we have met, Alderman Eadric. I came to court with Alderman Elfhelm.’ The room went silent at the sound of that name, but Wulfnoth seemed to relish the moment to confront Elfhelm’s murderer. ‘Three years ago. Just before he died.’
‘Oh?’ Eadric said. ‘I don’t remember you. But let us not dwell on past matters. Mill water only grinds once; then it flows to the sea. Yes, I have heard of your exploits, Athelmar’s son. How good that you have come here to share your wisdom with us. You will be part of the king’s fleet?’
‘I will,’ Wulfnoth said.
‘Good. We need men like you. In fact, the king is looking for a man to lead the fleet. Look, lords and bishops, who better than a sea captain with a record of catching the Danes?’
And with that Eadric turned his back and put his arm on the king’s and they led the way to dinner.
At the feast Eadric sat near the king. Morcar stood at the far end of the hall. After the feast he waited outside for Wulfnoth and shook his hand warmly. ‘Those were brave words,’ he said.
‘I spoke truthfully.’
‘And Eadric will not forget it.’
‘Who was he?’ Godwin asked.
‘Morcar. Elfhelm’s kinsman.’
‘If he is of Elfhelm’s kin, and enemy of Eadric, then why does the king still bring him to council?’ Godwin whispered to his father.
Wulfnoth’s face was serious. ‘The king must balance many men and opinons,’ he said. ‘Morcar is now the chief man among Elfhelm’s people. He is held a great lord in his own country. The king cannot ignore any man of such power. And if he excluded him, then war – not feud – would soon flourish between Eadric and Morcar.’
The next day the king took them all hawking among the reedy islets of the Temese.
Eadric came with all his brothers – an ugly brood, Godwin thought.
At the head of the company rode the king and Eadric, with their falcons hooded on their gloves.
‘Wulfnoth Cild,’ Eadric called. ‘Come forward! Take my hawk. Let us see who will catch the first heron for the king’s table.’
Wulfnoth heeled his horse forward, and Godwin tagged along, but his father was busy and there was no time for boys. The business was an adult affair: all hand-shaking and private conversations, and downing cranes or swans or ducks for the feasting. Godwin grew a little bored as his father debated the rights and wrongs of Danegeld with the king’s chaplain, a plump little monk with a high-pitched, earnest voice.
Godwin returned his horse to the stables. He was saddle sore and walked stiffly towards the king’s hall.
‘What is that?’ Godwin interrupted as a strange beast emerged from the bushes. Godwin had heard the king kept a strange bestiary of animals, and the thing he saw was long and tailed, with a head like a snake: a wyrm or a cockatrice, or a hoard-guarding spawn of a dragon. The beast came towards him and as it walked out into the sun – Godwin saw a brilliant blue snake’s head, long like a goose. It put its head back, its throat curling underneath, and let out a dreadful and haunting screech. Godwin’s mouth hung open.
The king’s door ward stood behind him and laughed.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is the king’s peacock. Watch!’
The bird – for bird it was – paced out into the sunlight, and then it spread its trailing tail and there was a gasp – and Godwin saw a crowd had gathered to watch the thing. Godwin’s mouth fell open. The bird paraded its tail as it stalked forwards, turning the tail a little to the side and the feathers shimmered like silk, changing hue and colour. Godwin felt tears in his eyes and did not know why. The sudden and unexpected beauty left his speechless.
At that moment the tail folded in upon itself. ‘You are lucky, Wulfnothson,’ he said. ‘Some never see that!’
At that moment Godwin heard shouting. There was a carefree note to it that awoke something in him that had long slept. Godwin walked towards the noise. It was boys shouting. Something flew past his nose and he ducked back as a herd of boys rushed after it. It was a bag of stitched leather. The boys almost crushed him as they dashed past. At the front was a blond lad. He grabbed the bag and kept running, looking over his shoulder for support. The young men – twenty or so in total – followed with all the determination of a hue and cry.
For a moment it seemed the blond lad would get away, before one of the larger boys tripped him up and he was promptly buried in a scrum of fists and bodies and screaming faces.
Godwin did not play games. He had no idea what was happening. Was it a lynching?
‘What are they doing?’ he said.
‘They’re playing football,’ Gamal told him.
Godwin had heard of it, a dangerous game, banned by many parishes, after the deaths and feuds it caused. The scrum collapsed. The boys punched and pummelled each other. After an interminable delay the ball appeared and one of the boys booted it up the field. The mob of lads pushed themselves up and followed, left the blond boy lying on his back. For a moment Godwin thought he was dead. His eyes were closed and there was blood smeared down from his nose. Godwin knelt down and put his hand to the lad’s chest. Godwin could see that he was a few years older than himself, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. He was breathing, but he did not move or open his eyes.
Godwin looked around for someone to call to, but Gamal had gone to greet some visitors. He was about to call for help when the lad sat up. ‘Jesu!’ he said, shaking his head. He spoke with a strong Northymbrian accent, touched his nose and saw that it was bleeding. ‘Jes-fething-u!’
The boy pushed himself to his feet, dusted himself off and caught Godwin’s eye. He was broad, with clothes made of the finest blue cloth, and a belt of cunningly plaited leather.
‘Did you see that?’ he said. ‘It took three of them. Bastards! Should pick on someone their own size. They’re Eadric’s sons. Father gave him my sister to marry, so we have to let them play with us. They’re all in my brother’s team. He’s Athelstan. He’ll be king next, so everyone wants to be on his side. Anyway, what’s your name? My name’s Edmund. You’re on my team. Come! Take your cloak off. There’s no swords or daggers, so better leave your eating knife as well. We have to get the ball to that tree over there.’ Edmund pointed along the length of the hall wall where there was a great crowd of boys all shouting and fighting. Somewhere in the middle of the ruck was the ball. A tall blond boy broke free and someone tripped him up.
‘That’s my brother Eadwig. He’s a shit,’ Edmund said. ‘I had another brother, but he died.’
Godwin was speechless for a moment. ‘My brother died too,’ he said.
Edmund wiped the blood from his nose on the back of his hand. ‘How?’
‘He was wasted by sickness,’ Godwin said.
‘Mine had the king’s evil. Ironic, huh? Hands of a king are the hands of a healer. Isn’t that what they say? Bollocks, clearly. My father’s Ethelred.’
‘I guessed.’
Edmund made an oddly apologetic and embarrassed gesture.
Godwin didn’t know what to say. ‘When did your brother die?’ he said after a pause.
‘A month ago. Yours?’
‘A year and a half ago.’
The boy let out a sigh and gave him a sympathetic look. ‘Shit, isn’t it?’
Godwin nodded.
‘What’s your name?’ Edmund said.
‘Godwin.’
‘And who is your father?’
‘Wulfnoth Cild.’
‘Ah!’ Edmund said. ‘Good. You’re on my team. Come on! Let’s get stuck into these bastards!’
Godwin followed Edmund as he limped after the others.
As the royal hunt ended, the king led the nobles back towards the hall. Eadric’s horse fell in alongside Wulfnoth’s.
‘Greetings, Wulfnoth. How are you enjoying your stay at court?’
‘Ve
ry well, Alderman.’
Eadric smiled. ‘Please. No need for formalities here, Wulfnoth Thegn. High and low, we are all the king’s councillors. And his servants.’
‘We are,’ Wulfnoth said.
Eadric looked ahead and let out a great breath. ‘The king’s fleet,’ he said, ‘is a great venture. What think you?’
‘I am proud to serve.’
‘And how will you serve?’
‘In whatever way the king needs me.’
‘We need a commander to lead the fleet.’
Wulfnoth drew in a slow breath. ‘We do. A strong commander who will meet the Army and prevent their landing.’
‘You know all about sea battles?’
Wulfnoth shrugged. ‘They are much like land battles. First you must find the enemy, and then you meet them in battle. The rest is up to courage, luck and God.’
Eadric listened wide-eyed as Wulfnoth recounted tales of sea fights, where ships were lashed together, so there was a large and stable platform for men to slaughter each other. ‘Such bravery!’ he said. ‘Such resolution! You are just the kind of man England needs. When do you go to the fleet at Sandwice?’
‘In two days’ time. We go by boat.’
‘You do not travel with the king?’
‘I was not asked.’
‘I ask you,’ Eadric said.
‘You are not the king.’
Eadric leant in and put his hand to Wulfnoth’s arm, but Wulfnoth flinched.
‘You’re right, I am not. Ah, look! That is your son, is it not? He has made friends with the athelings. A fine future awaits you both, it seems. Farewell, Wulfnoth. You should come to my hall some time. I have a fine collection of Frankish swords.’
‘Perhaps you should use them,’ Wulfnoth said.
Eadric laughed, and as farewell he said, ‘I like you, Wulfnoth Cild. You will go far. I can see it.’
When the time came, Godwin was sad to leave Edmund. The two lads stood side by side, not talking, as Wulfnoth paid his respects to the king. He was tense and irritable, and when he came out of the hall, he called to Godwin to come.
‘I’m going,’ Godwin said.
‘All right then,’ Edmund said, and rolled his eyes. ‘And I have to go to Canturburie!’
‘Say a prayer for me,’ Godwin said.
Edmund laughed.
‘Come on, Godwin,’ Wulfnoth called again.
Wulfnoth was glad to take his leave from the king’s court. The scheming appalled him, and he was tired of both Eadric and Morcar, for they were each obsessed with the other and Wulfnoth did not like being soiled by either.
They took boats down the Temese and reached Sandwice on the third day. They found Swanneck and all of the Sudsexe ships, pulled high on to the dunes well away from the crashing slow waves. The masts of Wulfnoth’s ships were stepped, their hulls scrubbed clean, timbers caulked and painted, oar-locks oiled. They looked formidable, like a pack of hounds or a line of dragons, angry and fierce and ready to be unleashed at last against the country’s enemies.
All through July the fleet gathered, till there were more than a hundred and seventy ships, and all their crews. They came from the coastal shires: Northymbria, Lincoliascir, Nordfolc, Sudfulc, Exsessa, Cantware, Sudsexe, Hamtunscir, Dornsætum, Defanascir and a few ships from far Cornwalia.
As the crews came together, they found that their stories were common to all of them, that whole tracts of England had suffered the same or worse.
Their grievances against the king’s councillors – Eadric chief among them – were commonplace, and the longer they waited for the king, the louder their anger became.
Wulfnoth tried to calm them and went from camp to camp talking to the leaders.
‘I met the king in Lundenburh,’ he said. ‘He will be here soon and then he will announce the leader. Have faith. The king is a good man.’
When Morcar arrived, Wulfnoth rode straight to see him. He was shown in to Morcar’s tent, and the two men greeted each other warmly.
‘Men are not happy,’ Wulfnoth said. ‘Many are talking of going home.’
‘I do not blame them,’ Morcar said.
‘We need the fleet,’ Wulfnoth said. ‘England needs the fleet.’
Morcar looked at him. ‘So you have not heard?’
‘What?’
‘At Canturburie, the king announced the captain of the fleet.’
Wulfnoth felt a thrill and a dread run through him.
‘Guess,’ Morcar said.
‘I cannot.’
‘Go on.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Eadric,’ Morcar said.
Eadric, Wulfnoth thought later that night when he was finally alone. He had hoped that he would be given command, and he laughed at himself for that now. Foolish man. Of course it would be Eadric. Who else could it be? How could you imagine that you would be made captain?
Wulfnoth brooded. To either side, stretched along the long strand, the English fleet of two hundred ships lay prone on the pale shingle. The sea breeze turned from the west to the east and men began to look for the Danish fleet. The horizons were clear, but it focused men’s minds. They reacted to the news of Eadric’s appointment with fury.
‘Who is this fool?’ men raged. ‘He does not live within a hundred miles of the coast!’
Before them was a watery grave or a Danish spear.
‘I shall not risk my life for Eadric,’ one man said.
The crews spoke hot words to their captains. The captains came together and spoke to their lords, and the lords sat unhappily, for the only man they had to complain to was the king.
‘We need a leader who will speak to the king,’ they agreed. ‘If we all go together, he will have to listen.’
CHAPTER SIX
The Sea Captain
Wulfnoth was troubled. The country had poured all their faith into the fleet, but as it teetered towards mutiny it seemed their hopes were as fragile as the green glass beaker on the king’s best table. Morcar refused to invervene.
‘So you will sit here and let the Army burn your boats? Or will you sail home and cower and wait for the Army to come? Either way, your hall will burn, and your folk will curse your name and your memory!’
Morcar did not disagree. ‘My men will not sail.’
‘They will sail if you lead them!’ Wulfnoth said.
‘Do not shout at me, Wulfnoth. I am not one of your retainers. I am a lord of men, and my men have suffered more than most. The king allowed our lord Elfhelm to be murdered, and then he appointed his murderer to be our chief. Each day our shame is rubbed like salt into our weeping wounds, and yet we still came; but we cannot follow that murderer into battle.’
Wulfnoth was raging with grief. ‘Then who will you follow?’
‘I would follow a mule if it was set upon a boat, rather than that murderous bastard,’ Morcar said.
‘Yes, we will follow any man except Eadric,’ the ship captains agreed. ‘Let us follow the king.’
‘The king will not lead,’ Wulfnoth said.
‘Then give us his son. Let Athelstan lead us!’
‘The queen will not allow her own son to be upstaged.’
‘Then who can lead us?’ the men asked.
‘We should give the king one of our names to be our leader,’ they said amongst themselves. ‘Which of us can lead us?’
There was a pause. ‘Let Wulfnoth lead us!’ Morcar said, ‘For he is a Sudsexe man and he has already won a name for himself. Let Wulfnoth lead!’
Wulfnoth tried to still this talk, but he no more had the power over men’s tongues than did any other man, and he secretly felt he was destined to lead the fleet. There was no one else who had done so much against the pirates, who knew so much about the tides and the coasts, and who had the courage to take the fight to the enemy’s ships.
The ship crews lined the Sandwice beach as they waited for the king’s painted barges next morning. When they arrived, their sails filled with a stiff westerly gale,
many of the Wise lay seasick in the gunwales. Clinging nervously to the masts, the ship crews stared stonily out at them.
‘Where is our captain?’ one man asked. His words carried far.
‘Look – there he is, clinging to the mast!’ the contemptuous answer came.
Eadric was no sea-hand and his skin was green as he made his way forward to the prow of the king’s barge, to show himself to the fleet. It was all he could do to stand tall, but as the ship turned along the shore, it began to wallow violently in the swell. The boat pitched and yawned and Eadric regretted leaving the mast. He had never felt so miserable, could hold his lunch down no longer, and bent over the side and puked, and all along the shore the English ship crews laughed and mocked.
Even King Ethelred laughed. ‘Bear up!’ he said. ‘The men are looking at you.’
The crew of the king’s barge caught the mood of their fellows lining the shore and they moved slowly, drawing the landing out. In the end Eadric could not wait. He saw the land so close and jumped over the side, thinking he would wade ashore, but the beach was steep and Eadric went under the waves. No one moved. Let’s see if he can swim, they thought.
Eadric came spluttering to the surface.
Men wished that a sea monster might come and drag him under, and in the end it was Wulfnoth who strode in and pulled him out, vomit still clinging to his kirtle, looking like a drowned rat. He set Eadric upon dry land.
Morcar strode forward. ‘Look what Wulfnoth has rescued, the finest sea captain the king could find!’
Wulfnoth went to see Eadric as soon as he had a chance to establish himself in a thatched tithe barn. He sat at a table with his four brothers, and Wulfnoth could not think of a more unpleasant row of faces. They were like evil and malice and treachery and guile all made manifest.
Eadric looked up. ‘What is it, Wulfnoth?’ he asked. His tone was brusque.
‘There is discontent among the fleet,’ Wulfnoth said. ‘They will not sail.’
‘Then they are fools.’
Eadric took a gold ring from his finger and held it out. ‘We need brave men like you.’ The hand remained outstretched. ‘Take it,’ Eadric said. The gold ring gleamed. Eadric’s eyes were full upon him. His palm remained open.
