Sword of Kings

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Ælfweard?’

  ‘It seems Lord Varin was tied to a post and the boy was given a sword. It took some time.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Men were made to watch, and were told it was the fit punishment for a lack of vigilance. And Lord Varin was not even given a Christian burial! His corpse was thrown to the dogs, and what the dogs left was burned. And to think that Ælfweard is a grandson of King Alfred!’ He said the last words bitterly, then added, almost as an afterthought, ‘The sentries believe the army will march soon.’

  ‘Of course it will,’ I said. Æthelhelm had assembled a massive army and he needed to feed it, and the easiest way to do that was to march into Mercia and steal whatever food could be found. For the moment his troops would be surviving on the supplies they had discovered in Lundene’s storehouses and on what food they had brought with them, but hunger would come soon enough. Doubtless Æthelhelm still hoped that Æthelstan would assault Lundene and that he could slaughter the Mercians beneath the city walls, but if Æthelstan did not oblige him then he would be forced to leave the city and seek to destroy the enemy in battle. And the West Saxons, I reflected bitterly, must be confident. They had the bigger army, much the bigger army, and that army would march soon.

  ‘The signal,’ Father Oda went on, ‘will be the ringing of the city bells. When they sound, the troops must assemble at the old fort.’

  ‘Ready to march,’ I grunted.

  ‘Ready to march,’ Oda confirmed. ‘But it is an unhappy army.’

  ‘Unhappy?’

  ‘The East Anglians are treated as serfs by the West Saxons, and the Christians are unhappy too.’

  I snorted a humourless laugh. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the archbishop,’ Oda began, then stopped.

  ‘Athelm?’

  ‘They say he’s a prisoner in the palace here. An honoured one, perhaps.’ He paused, frowning. ‘But still they dared lay hands on Christ’s servant!’

  I had long suspected that Athelm, the Archbishop of Contwaraburg, was an opponent of Æthelhelm and his family, even though Athelm was himself a distant cousin to the ealdorman. Perhaps that kinship explained his hostility, an hostility born of knowing Æthelhelm and his nephew only too well. ‘They won’t dare kill the archbishop,’ I said.

  ‘Of course they will,’ Oda said brusquely. ‘They’ll say he’s sick,’ and once again he made the sign of the cross, ‘then claim he died of a fever. Who is to know? But it won’t happen yet. They need him to place the helmet on the boy’s head.’ Ælfweard would not be properly king until that ceremony was performed, and Æthelhelm would surely insist that Archbishop Athelm lifted the gem-encrusted helmet of Wessex. Any lesser bishop would be seen as a poor substitute, calling into question Ælfweard’s legitimacy.

  ‘Has the Witan met?’ I asked. Ælfweard needed the Witan’s approval before he could receive the royal helmet.

  Oda shrugged. ‘Who can tell? Maybe? But my suspicion is that Æthelhelm is waiting until the Witan of all three kingdoms can meet. He wants to proclaim Ælfweard as the king of all the Saxons.’ He turned, frowning, as sudden loud voices sounded from the sentries, but it was only the arrival of two girls. Whores, I assumed, from one of the river taverns. ‘Æthelhelm has the support of the West Saxon lords, of course,’ Oda went on, ‘and the East Anglians are too frightened to oppose him, but to get the Mercian support he needs to crush Æthelstan. Once that’s done he’ll kill the Mercian lords who defied him and appoint new men to their estates. Then Æthelhelm’s family will rule all Englaland.’

  ‘Not Northumbria,’ I growled.

  ‘And how will you oppose his invasion? You can raise three thousand warriors?’

  ‘Not even half that number,’ I admitted.

  ‘And he’ll probably come with more than three thousand,’ Oda said, ‘and what will you do then? You think your walls at Bebbanburg can defy that army?’

  ‘It won’t happen,’ I said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Because tomorrow I kill Æthelhelm,’ I said.

  ‘Not tonight?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said firmly. Oda lifted a quizzical eyebrow, but said nothing. ‘Tomorrow,’ I explained, ‘is when Heorstan’s men would have told Æthelhelm to expect us. He expects me to try to force an entry through one of the northern gates, so they’ll be watching from the northern ramparts.’

  ‘Meaning they’ll be awake and alert,’ Oda pointed out.

  ‘As they will be tonight, too,’ I said. Night is when evil stirs, when spirits and shadow-walkers haunt the world, and when a man’s fear of death is felt most keenly. Æthelhelm and Ælfweard would be deep in the palace, and their red-cloaked guards would be all around them. No stranger would be permitted through the palace archways except perhaps those who brought an urgent message, and even they would be disarmed beyond the gates. The corridors and great hall would be full of household warriors, both Æthelhelm’s and the royal guards. We might just succeed in breaking through one gate, but would then find ourselves in a maze of passages and courtyards swarming with enemies. Come morning, when the dawn chased the evil spirits back to their lairs, the palace gates would open and Æthelhelm would surely want to watch from the northern wall. It was there, I thought, that I would have to find him.

  ‘And how will you kill him tomorrow?’ Oda asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, nor did I. In truth my only plan was to wait for an opportunity, and that was no plan at all. It was not a cold night, but still, thinking of what I had promised to do next day, I shivered.

  The dawn came early, a summer dawn with another cloudless sky smeared only by the city’s smoke. I had slept badly. We had unrolled the barge’s sail and laid it on the deck, set sentries, and then I had worried through the short night. My ribs hurt, my shoulders ached, my skin was sore. I must have dozed, but I was still tired when the sunrise brought a freshening south-west wind, and I took that wind as a sign from the gods.

  Back in Werlameceaster my plan had seemed possible. Not likely, perhaps, but possible. I had thought that if Æthelhelm’s men were watching for me from Lundene’s northern wall we could climb the hill from the river, and then what? I had imagined discovering Æthelhelm and his nephew somewhere close to the walls, and that a sudden assault would overcome his guards and give us the chance to slaughter both. Their deaths, I had hoped, would be enough to rouse the East Anglians who, once we had opened a gate to let Merewalh’s men into the city, would help chase the West Saxons out of Lundene. Æthelhelm ruled by fear, so to remove that fear was to destroy his power, but now, as the sun climbed higher, I felt nothing but despair. Lundene was a city crammed with my enemies, and my feeble hopes depended on persuading some of those enemies to fight for us. It was madness. We were in a city garrisoned by thousands of the enemy, and we were one hundred and eighty men.

  Brihtwulf and Wihtgar had walked into the city at dawn. I had not known they were going and would have stopped them for fear that one of Heorstan’s six men might recognise them, but they returned safely to report that there had been frequent fights during the darkness. ‘West Saxons against East Anglians,’ Brihtwulf said.

  ‘Just tavern fights,’ Wihtgar said dismissively.

  ‘But men died,’ Brihtwulf added.

  Both men sat on my barge’s deck and began to stroke their sword-blades with sharpening stones. ‘Not surprising, is it?’ Brihtwulf said. ‘The East Anglians hate the West Saxons! They were enemies not too long ago.’

  It had not been that many years since the West Saxons had invaded East Anglia and defeated the Danish jarls. Those jarls had been squabbling, unable to choose their own king after the death of Eohric who, twenty years before Edward’s death, I had cut down in a ditch. I remembered Eohric as a fat, pig-eyed man who had squealed as we hacked him with our blades, and the squealing had only stopped when Serpent-Breath delivered the killing stroke.

  And so had died the last true Danish King of East Anglia. Eohric had tried to preserve his kingdom by pretending to be a Ch
ristian, thus averting the power of Wessex, though I remember his hand desperately clutching the hilt of his broken sword in his death throes so that he would be taken to Valhalla. He had ruled a country of his own people, the Danish settlers, but they were outnumbered by Saxon Christians who should have welcomed King Edward’s troops. And many did welcome the West Saxons, until tales of rape, theft, and murder soured the conquest. Now those East Anglians, both Danish and Saxon, were expected to fight for Wessex, for Æthelhelm and for Ælfweard.

  ‘God-damned West Saxons,’ Wihtgar snarled, ‘strutting about as if they own the city.’

  ‘They do own it,’ Finan said drily.

  Finan, Brihtwulf and Wihtgar were talking together while I mostly listened. Brihtwulf described how he had been challenged as he returned to the wharf. ‘Some arrogant bastard said we were going the wrong way. He said we should go to the walls.’

  ‘And you told him what?’ I asked.

  ‘That we’d go where we damn well liked.’

  ‘And maybe we should go,’ I said.

  Brihtwulf looked puzzled. ‘Already? I thought you told Merewalh to wait till past noon.’

  ‘I did.’

  Wihtgar glanced at the sky. ‘Long time till noon, lord.’

  I was sitting on the great oak block where the barge’s mast would be stepped. ‘We have a westerly wind,’ I said, ‘and it’s brisk.’

  Brihtwulf glanced at Wihtgar, who just shrugged as if to say he had no idea what I was talking about. ‘A westerly?’ Brihtwulf asked.

  ‘A westerly wind lets us leave the city,’ I explained. ‘We can steal three ships, fast ships, and we sail downriver.’

  There was a pause, then Brihtwulf spoke with evident disbelief. ‘Now? We leave now?’

  ‘Now,’ I said.

  ‘Jesus,’ Finan muttered. The other two just stared at me.

  ‘Father Oda believes there may be three thousand men in Lundene,’ I went on, ‘so even if we succeed in opening a gate for Merewalh, we’ll be outnumbered by what? Five men to our one? Six to one?’ The numbers had haunted me through the short summer night.

  ‘How many of those are East Anglians?’ Brihtwulf asked.

  ‘Most of them,’ Wihtgar muttered.

  ‘But will they fight against their lords?’ I asked. Brihtwulf had been right when he said that the East Anglians hated the West Saxons, but that did not mean they would lift a sword against Æthelhelm’s troops. I had sailed to Cent hoping to raise a force of Centishmen to fight Æthelhelm, and that had failed, now I was pinning my hopes on East Anglians, a hope that seemed as frail as that which had faded in Fæfresham. ‘If I lead you into the city,’ I said, ‘and even if we succeed in opening a gate for Merewalh, we all die.’

  ‘And we just abandon Merewalh?’ Brihtwulf asked indignantly.

  ‘Merewalh and his horsemen will retreat north,’ I said, ‘and Æthelhelm won’t pursue too far. He’ll fear a trap. And besides, he wants to destroy Æthelstan’s army, not a handful of horsemen from Werlameceaster.’

  ‘He wants to kill you,’ Finan said.

  I ignored that. ‘If Merewalh sees horsemen coming from the city he’ll retreat. He’ll go back to Werlameceaster.’ I hated abandoning the plans that we had persuaded Merewalh to join, but all night I had brooded, and the dawn had brought me to my senses. It was better we should live, than die uselessly. ‘Merewalh will survive,’ I finished.

  ‘So we just …’ Brihtwulf began, then paused. I suspect he was about to say that we would just run away, but he curbed the words. ‘Then we just go back to Werlameceaster?’

  ‘Serpent-Breath,’ Finan muttered to me.

  I smiled at that. In truth I was wondering whether the west wind was truly a sign from the gods that I should abandon this reckless adventure and instead seize three good ships and fly in front of the wind to the sea and safety. I remember Ravn, the blind poet and father to Ragnar, often telling me that courage was like a horn of ale. ‘We begin with a full horn, boy,’ he had told me, ‘but we drain it. Some men drain it fast, maybe their horn was not full to begin with, and others drain it slowly, but courage lessens as we age.’ I was trying to persuade myself that it was not a lack of courage that made me want to leave, but rather prudence and an unwillingness to lead good men into a city filled with enemies, even if those good men wanted to fight.

  Father Oda joined us to sit on the great oak block. ‘I said a prayer,’ he announced.

  You need to, I thought, but stayed silent.

  ‘A prayer, father?’ Finan asked.

  ‘For success,’ Oda said confidently. ‘King Æthelstan is destined to rule over all Englaland and we today make that possible! God is with us!’

  I was about to give him a sour answer, about to confess that I doubted our success, but before I could say a word the first church bell sounded.

  There was only a handful of bells in Lundene, perhaps five or six churches had raised or been given enough silver to buy them. King Alfred, when he had decided to rebuild the old Roman city, had wanted to hang bells at each gate, but the first two had been stolen within days, and so he decreed that horns be used instead. Most churches simply hung a metal rod or sheet that could be beaten to summon the faithful to worship, and now, together with the few bells, all of them began to sound, a cacophony that panicked birds into the sky.

  None of us spoke as the clangour went on. Dogs howled.

  ‘That must,’ Brihtwulf broke our silence, paused, then raised his voice so he could be heard, ‘that must be Merewalh.’

  ‘It’s too early,’ Wihtgar said.

  ‘Then Æthelhelm is assembling his army,’ I said, ‘ready to march. And we’re too late.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Father Oda asked indignantly. ‘Too late?’

  The bells were surely summoning Æthelhelm’s army, which meant he would be leading that horde out of the city to attack Æthelstan’s weaker forces. We were all standing now, gazing north, though there was nothing to be seen there.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Father Oda insisted. ‘Why are we too late?’

  But before I could say a word in answer there was a bellow of anger from further down the wharves. The shout was followed by more yelling, by the clash of blades, then by hurried footsteps. A man appeared, running for his life. A spear followed him, and the spear, with deadly aim, struck him in the back. He took a few stumbling steps, then collapsed. He lay for a heartbeat, the spear’s shaft wavering above him, then tried to crawl. Two men in red cloaks appeared. One seized the spear’s haft and drove it downwards, the other kicked the wounded man in the ribs. The man jerked, then shuddered. The clangour of the bells was lessening.

  ‘You will go to the walls!’ a voice shouted. More men in red cloaks appeared on the landward wharf. They were evidently searching the ships, rousting out men who had slept on board, then herding them through the gaps in the river wall and so into the city. I assumed the dying man who still shuddered on the wooden planks had defied them.

  ‘Do we kill them?’ Finan asked. The red-cloaked men, I could see about thirty of them, had not yet reached our three barges. ‘They’re here to stop men leaving,’ Finan guessed, and I guessed he was right.

  I gave him no answer. I was thinking of what Brihtwulf had said, how the East Anglians hated the West Saxons. I was thinking of Serpent-Breath. I was thinking of the oath I had given to Æthelstan. I was thinking that Brihtwulf despised me for being a coward who wanted to run away. I was thinking that fate was a malevolent and capricious bitch, and I was thinking that we must slaughter the men in red cloaks and steal three good ships to make our escape from Lundene.

  ‘You! Who are you?’ A tall man in Æthelhelm’s red cloak was staring at us from the wharf. ‘And why aren’t you moving?’

  ‘Who are we?’ Brihtwulf muttered, looking at me.

  It was Father Oda who answered. He stood, his pectoral cross bright above his black robes, and shouted back. ‘We are Lord Ealhstan’s men from Herutceaster!’

  Th
e tall man did not question either name, both of which were Oda’s inventions. ‘Then what in Christ’s name are you doing?’ he snarled. ‘You’re supposed to be on the walls!’

  ‘Why did you kill that man?’ Oda demanded sternly.

  The red-cloaked killer hesitated, plainly offended at being questioned, but Oda’s natural authority and the fact that he was a priest made the man reply, if surlily. ‘Him and a dozen others. The bastards thought they’d run away. Didn’t want to fight. Now for God’s sake, move!’

  The clamour of the bells, the death of the men on the wharf, and the anger of the man shouting at us seemed an enormous commotion in response to Merewalh and his two hundred men. ‘Move where?’ Brihtwulf called back. ‘We only arrived last night. No one told us what to do.’

  ‘I’m telling you now! Go to the walls!’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Father Oda shouted.

  ‘Pretty Boy has come with his whole army. Seems he wants to die today, so move your East Anglian arses and do some killing! Go that way!’ He pointed west. ‘Someone will tell you what to do when you get there, now go! Move!’

  We moved. It seemed that the west wind was indeed an omen.

  Because it had brought Æthelstan from the west. He had come to Lundene.

  So we would fight.

  Twelve

  ‘Pretty boy?’ Brihtwulf asked as he paced beside me.

  ‘He means Æthelstan.’

  ‘Why pretty boy?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just an insult.’

  ‘And he’s come to attack Lundene?’ Brihtwulf asked, astonished.

  ‘So he said, who knows?’ I had no answer, unless the garrison had mistaken Merewalh’s two hundred men for Æthelstan’s army, which seemed unlikely.

  Two horsemen in red cloaks spurred past us, going west. ‘What’s happening?’ Brihtwulf shouted at them, but they ignored us. We had gone through one of the gaps in the river wall and were walking west along the street beyond. We passed Gunnald’s yard, the gates shut, and I had a sudden image of Benedetta in her cowled gown. If I lived through this day, I thought, I would go to Werlameceaster and find her, and that made me think of Eadith, and I pushed that uncomfortable thought away just as we reached the slight bend in the street where it led up to the northern end of the great bridge.