by Justin Hill
‘If we welcome Swein, Ethelred will call me a traitor. If we do not, then Swein will burn us out of hall and home.’
The men argued back and forth, but there was no clear answer. At last it was Morcar’s wife who intervened. ‘Do not worry about Ethelred. He is an old man. He will soon be dead.’
‘But what about the king’s sons?’
‘They are sound men,’ she told him. ‘They will understand. Welcome Swein, but do not help him too much. That way, you can plead that you acted under duress. And an oath under duress is no oath.’
Morcar feasted the Danish king, but secretly he looked to the south and prayed for help. When news finally came, Morcar’s heart was heavy. ‘Ethelred hides in Lundenburh. There is no fyrd gathering. Our own king has betrayed us. He is no longer our protector.’
The men who still believed in Ethelred would not fight unless the he summoned them, but he had lost faith in his own people. They looked and waited for news, or for the war arrow to summon them to honour their oaths, but there was nothing.
‘If only the king would come,’ Old Athelmar, alderman of Sumersæton, said by way of apology when Edmund’s armed company rested their horses in Bade.
‘Then follow me,’ Edmund said. ‘If you follow me, we can persuade Athelstan to raise his banner. Will you take him as your king?’
‘You ask me to betray my king in order to crown his son?’
‘Yes,’ Edmund said.
Old Athelmar thought long. It was a hard thing to ask an old man who cherished his family’s long loyalty. ‘I would,’ he said at last, ‘if the Wise were agreed.’
‘Damn the Wise,’ Edmund cursed under his breath. They were slow and stupid and senile.
Edmund and Athelstan rode about the country attempting to find men who would fight, but it was the same everywhere they stopped. If only the king would come, then they would follow him; if only the Wise would make Athelstan king.
Within weeks the whole country had fallen to Swein’s Army and Edmund turned from defiant to despondent. Many young men had joined his company, but almost as many had slipped quietly away.
‘Let us ride against Swein,’ he said.
‘A hundred against four thousand?’
Edmund was fired up with the thought of a glorious death. ‘Men will sing our names. We shall shame the country by our deaths. The finest hundred men that England could find, mauled by Danish spears, prepared to fight when no one else did.’
Godwin let Edmund talk, but his eyes wandered over the faces of their companions. He did not want to throw his life away, nor those of men who were dear to him.
That night Godwin took Edmund aside. You are the lord of all these young men. If you died, what would become of them? The wolves would descend on them. It would be like Herod and the babes. All those boys like Blecca. Eadric and the queen would snuff them out. We need you, Edmund; your life is very precious to us and to the country. Do not throw it away in anger or despair.’
They made their way to Lundenburh, where the rump of the English court cowered about their king. Blecca acted like Godwin’s shield-bearer. He held his horse as Godwin mounted, carried his spears and made way for him on the benches. He was also a good talker, and made Godwin laugh.
One night that September, as they filed into the village where they planned to rest, Edmund called for Godwin. Godwin left Blecca to polish his sword.
When Godwin returned the two of them sat in silence for a long time, and then Godwin stood up and stretched.
‘I would not be a king of men.’
‘Nor I,’ Blecca said.
‘Edmund is a fine man. He is the only man I know who never let me down. Even my brother let me down.’
Godwin had told Blecca about his brother a while ago: a vague tale of him dying in a famine. He did not know how he had let Godwin down, and did not ask.
Godwin smiled. ‘You have finished the sword?’
Blecca nodded.
‘Good,’ Godwin said. ‘We shall be in Lundenburh tomorrow. Get a good night’s rest. It will be an early morning.’
Edmund and his company arrived in Lundenburh at first light. Athelstan had looked for their coming and came down and greeted them at the city gates. A crowd had gathered on the walls above the gates. Their faces were despondent. As Edmund dismounted and embraced his brother, Godwin heard men asking each other, ‘Will they fight? Will the king’s sons fight?’
Godwin found the faces of the men who were talking and spoke to them. ‘Yes. Do not fear. The king’s sons will fight.’
His words stilled the murmurs and a few men cheered as they rode through the gates, but when Edmund got to the hall, he was furious with his brother.
They had barely entered the hall when their voices began to rise. Blecca looked to Godwin in alarm, and Godwin tried to hide his concern.
‘Look at what has happened,’ Edmund’s voice carried into the yard. ‘If you had raised the banner a year ago, we could have gathered a host of war-eager warriors.’
‘There would have been murder!’
‘Better murder than this!’
‘I told you then and I tell you now, I will not come to the throne like that!’ Athelstan shouted.
‘Then you will not come to the throne at all,’ Edmund said.
‘Edmund, I had thought better of you. It is not the time for this.’
Edmund was shouting now. ‘Then when? Swein will not be content until we are dead. Where will we run? You want to go to Normandig with Queen Emma? She will poison us both rather than let us live. We are between the viper and the serpent and all because you are a coward!’
‘I am no coward!’
‘Then take the throne!’
‘I will not!’ Athelstan roared, and as the two men drew daggers, their retainers jumped up and pulled them apart.
Edmund shut himself in his room. There was a dreadful air in the palace. The newer lads like Blecca stood in uncomfortable groups. More than ever they needed calming. Godwin tried to cheer the others, but the mood was like a funeral. When the door was unbolted, they all stood back for Godwin to go in.
He caught Blecca’s eye and walked in alone.
Edmund was pacing under the window. He turned quickly, saw Godwin, and stopped.
‘The coward!’ Edmund cursed. ‘Athelstan’s a coward! I told him to seize the throne and he would not. He thought he could just sit and wait for our father to die. And look what has happened now! We have lost everything!’
The angrier Edmund became, the calmer Godwin was. He closed the door behind him and signalled for Edmund to speak more quietly.
Edmund let out a long sigh and buried his head in his hands. ‘You know, you are lucky your father is not here to shame you. I wish my father was dead. I cannot bear what he has done.’
Godwin drew in a deep breath.
At last he said, ‘Your brother would not go against your father, and you would not go against your brother.’
There was a long pause. Edmund understood he was being gently reproached. He drew in a deep breath. ‘I know,’ he said eventually. ‘I know. You are right. Honour has hobbled us. Look at our enemy. They are like savages. Swein’s deposed his own father and set the old man to begging. Should we have done that? Would God have looked more kindly on us?’
‘God moves in mysterious ways,’ Godwin said. It was what religious men always said.
‘Don’t you start!’ Edmund said, and punched him.
Godwin laughed. ‘He does,’ he said. ‘Bloody mysterious ways.’
‘Oh, how he does.’ Edmund drew in a deep breath. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘Fight the Danes.’
‘They are closing in?’
Godwin nodded. ‘Swein is only three days away.’
‘I feel like a boar,’ Edmund said, ‘as the hounds bring him to ground. He butts and gores, but he is surrounded by a circle of baying dogs and is doomed.’
Godwin was calm and certain. Platitudes were all he had. ‘We’re no
t dead yet,’ he said. ‘Where there’s life there’s hope.’
‘Is there?’ Edmund said. ‘I do not feel hope. How come you feel hope?’
Godwin laughed. He did not know. He just felt it. ‘Well,’ Godwin said, ‘life has been good to me.’
‘Has it?’
‘Of course. You took me in. That was a generous act. You have given me food and fire and honour. You have taken us all in. What more can we ask but an honourable lord and a chance to strike against our foe?’
‘You are a good man, Godwin Wulfnothson. I envy you. I wish I shared your optimism.’
‘You will,’ Godwin said.
Edmund half smiled. He stood up and straightened his clothes. ‘Where are the men?’
‘In the hall.’
‘Are they ashamed of me?’
‘No, of course not. They love you. You are their lord.’
Edmund didn’t seem to believe him, but at last he relented. ‘Where is my brother?’
‘In the hall.’
‘I should go and apologise.’
Godwin nodded.
‘Come with me,’ Edmund said.
It was a chill September morning when Swein’s Army arrived outside Lundenburh’s stone walls. A sea of Temese mist lapped against the foot of the walls and the world seemed muffled under a coat of dull dew droplets as the first Danes began to pitch tents in the sloping fields that rose from the river valley. For three days more and more men arrived, until the camp stretched as far as the forests where once they had hunted deer. They sat about and mocked the defenders, bathed naked in the river, feasted on the grass and practised with weapons.
Soon they sent messengers demanding Ethelred come out and fight.
‘Bastards!’ Edmund cursed the messengers. ‘Who are you to tell my father when he should fight!’
Edmund took a hunting bow and shot at them and the messengers hurried away before one of them was feathered.
Godwin and Edmund were up with the next dawn. Blecca came with them.
They had spent all night rolling from side to side, listening to the Danish singing and the strange laughter. Confidence oozed from the Danish camp.
‘Will battle come?’ Blecca asked Godwin.
Godwin was not sure. ‘I think so,’ he said.
‘Can I stand with you?’
‘No,’ Godwin said, but he thought of himself at that age, how he was hunting Danes, and relented. ‘As long as you stay behind me.’
Godwin, Blecca, Edmund and all the company able to fight took their appointed places on the walls among the strange mix of townsfolk, retainers, grooms and mercenaries who strengthened the defence at the gateways and key points of the line. Two of the king’s retainers sat on their shields and played dice.
They laughed and joked as Edmund and Godwin watched the Danes take their places and then dress their lines and move down into the mist between them.
So it has come to battle, Godwin thought as the war horns sang and the Danes’ spear tips came forward at a fast walk.
‘I always imagined my first battle would be a glorious thing,’ Blecca said, ‘but somehow this struggle feels doomed. We’re here to fight for an unwanted king. This is not glorious or heroic; we are dead men.’
‘We are not,’ Godwin said to him. ‘This is not the end.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ Godwin laughed. ‘This is just the beginning!’
Godwin caught Blecca’s eye, and Blecca grinned and hefted his shield.
‘Remember your father,’ Godwin told him. ‘Take revenge for his death.’
For three days the Danes attacked, continually testing the strength of the defenders. To the south they tested the wooden palisade that linked Crepelgate to the river wall. To the east they probed the tumbledown walls about Ældgate.
Edmund paced impatiently as the sounds of battle drifted from left and right. He was being cheated of glory. ‘Godwin! We are wasted here. Take a horse and see if they need our help.’
Blecca made to follow, but Godwin waved him back.
‘Stay with the prince,’ he said.
Godwin half ran, half hurried across the city. He grabbed the first saddled horse – an unruly courser with a butter-brown mane – and clattered down to the main thoroughfare, which crossed the city, thundering across the sturdy wooden bridge over the Fleot River.
‘How goes the battle?’ Godwin shouted to the commander there, a Danish mercenary, rumoured to be a man that Swein had exiled from his homeland.
The man was dressed in a coat of dark mail, with a boar helmet on his head. He had fine moustaches that reached down to his chest, and he rested his arms on a great bearded war axe.
‘Well!’ he shouted back. ‘They are only playing here. They fight without conviction and have fallen back to eat their lunch.’
Godwin turned the courser back towards the bridge. A waste of time, he thought, cursed the waiting.
Godwin was warm and sweaty as he climbed up the steps to where he had left Edmund on the gatehouse above Crepelgate, but neither Edmund nor Blecca nor any of their war party was there. Godwin did not know the men he saw sitting at the top of the tower. For a moment he thought he had climbed the wrong staircase and turned and looked about, but this was the tower, he was sure.
The men squatted against the wall, their shields drawn up to their knees. They were citizen levy, without mail or swords.
‘Where is the prince?’ Godwin demanded. ‘Where is Prince Edmund?’
One of the men waved a hand southwards, towards the river, from where the din of battle was growing ever louder.
‘They’re throwing all their strength against the West Gate.’
Damn, Godwin thought, and leapt down the wall. Edmund was in the thick of it, and he was not with him.
He started to panic as he grabbed the courser again and kicked him forward. The West Gate led straight to St Paul’s Cathedral, and the heavyset Romanesque church looked dark and gloomy as it overshadowed the longhouse thatched roofs.
Godwin kicked the horse towards St Forster’s Church and the closer he got, the louder the din. The city’s stone walls had been broken down to build the church, so the walls were weak there. Only a ditch spanned the gap, with a steep bank and palisade that reached high over any man on the other side. He was hoping to catch Edmund up, but either he had taken another route or he had not come this way at all.
‘I’m looking for Prince Edmund!’ he shouted at the men who were stumbling in the other direction, but their faces were streaked with blood and they stood stunned.
‘It’s over,’ one man told him, and Godwin kicked past him.
Blecca has my shield, he thought, and turned the corner and saw no sign of Edmund. But the sight before him chilled his heart. Just to the north of the West Gate, Danes had stormed the walls. They were leaping down from the palisade and landing among the houses and dashing into the street, running amok, like foxes in a chicken coop, chopping and slashing and grabbing and burning.
Godwin jumped from the horse, grabbed a shield from the ground and pulled it on to his arm. He felt both terrified and brave as he was knocked back by the men stumbling from the battle.
‘Fight!’ Godwin shouted at them. ‘Fight!’ he commanded, but his voice was shrill and their spirit was gone. ‘Fight!’ Godwin shouted, laying about him with the back of his sword. ‘Are you English men or no!’
One man used his spear like a walking stick, collapsed against the church walls and slid slowly to the ground, then pitched on to his face; another stared at his half-severed hand; a youth looked about in amazement as if to check that he really was carrying his guts in his arms. A Danish sword-swing ended the poor lad’s astonishment. He seemed to suddenly jump forward, head swinging round, blood splattering in an arc. He hung in the air for what seemed an impossibly long time before gracefully falling with the silent slowness of a goose feather.
Then the Dane turned. His eyes fixed on Godwin, as the hawk’s hard eyes fix on the startled hare.
The world became as bright and sharp and vivid as a stained-glass window. Godwin could see every movement of the man’s face; the shock-ripples across the man’s cheek, each drop of blood, every stone and pothole in the road before him, each weave of hazel in the wattle wall. Godwin saw the half-week stubble on the Dane’s chin, grey mixed in with the black of each crooked tooth, the charging Dane’s grimace; heard the grunt as the Dane thrust his spear at Godwin’s throat.
It happened with the paralysing speed of a nightmare. Godwin tried to move, his limbs were unresponsive. He saw the grain of the spear haft; the rough finish on the spear blade – the point freshly ground with a rough whetstone; the smear of red – another man’s blood – gleaming for a moment as Godwin knew he was about to die.
Godwin threw his sword up, blood and gore showered his face. He screamed and fell back. Something crashed on top of him and pinned him to the floor and he prayed to God to save him this day.
*
Blecca kept hold of Godwin’s shield and stood near to Edmund and tried to keep calm. Two of the king’s retainers were ostentatiously playing dice when word had come of a large Danish attack on the palisade at St Forster’s Church.
‘Up!’ Edmund said.
Blecca jumped up. He did not want to go into battle without Godwin, could not quite believe he was about to fight. I’m only a boy, he thought. I ought to stay here on the tower. Yet part of him leapt at the chance to see battle close up.
‘Up!’ Edmund shouted, and Blecca’s feet barely touched the stairs, and then he was jogging down the street.
‘St Forster’s!’ the cry went up, and Blecca swallowed back his fear and chuckled as he thought of his mother seeing him.
He thought of Godwin coming to the tower and finding him gone.
‘Where were you?’ he imagined Godwin saying. ‘What do you mean, you saw battle! You better have looked after Edmund!’
Blecca was approaching the street now, and the men about him were slowing to a fast walk. Men were shouting, ‘Here! Look smart! The Danes will be upon us in a moment!’
Blecca lost sight of Edmund, but he saw his banner a little to his left and tried to push closer. He ended up behind the two men who had been playing dice. They were big and strong and wore mail shirts, and he thought that he could shelter behind them if necessary. They crowded up on to the bank. There was a broad level area at the top that had been strewn with a fresh layer of straw to provide the defenders with good footing. Mercenaries and king’s men began to arrive and fill the gaps between them. Blecca found himself pushed to the front and he stood there between the two great mail-shirted men.
