Sword of Kings

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘It has to be Æthelstan,’ Finan said. He was staring south across the wide river.

  Merewalh had sent a messenger to Æthelstan, seeking permission for this madness, but had the message encouraged Æthelstan to join it? I stared at the troops on the opposite bank of the Temes. There were not many in sight, perhaps forty or fifty showing between the houses of Suðgeweork, which was the settlement built at the bridge’s southern end, but those men were plainly there to threaten the high wooden-walled fortress that protected the bridge itself. A dozen spearmen were hurrying south across the bridge, presumably to reinforce the fort’s garrison.

  The men among Suðgeweork’s houses were too far away for me to make out any symbol on their shields, though I could see they were in mail and wore helmets. If they were Æthelstan’s men then they must have crossed the river above Lundene and marched downstream to surround the Suðgeweork fort. Those men, or at least the ones I could see, were not enough to capture the fort’s ramparts, and I could see no ladders, but their very presence was sufficient to draw defenders away from the walls of Lundene.

  There were a score of men still manning the barricade at the bridge’s northern end. They were commanded by a red-cloaked man on horseback who stood in his stirrups to watch the southern bank, then turned as we drew near. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. Father Oda gave his usual reply, that we were Lord Ealhstan’s men from Herutceaster, and again the names provoked no curiosity. ‘What are your orders?’ the man asked and, when none of us answered, he scowled. ‘So where are you going?’

  I nudged Brihtwulf. I was too well known to too many men in Wessex and had no desire to draw attention to myself. ‘We don’t have orders,’ Brihtwulf answered, ‘we just got here.’

  The horseman put two fingers between his lips and gave a piercing whistle to draw the attention of the men crossing the bridge. ‘How many do you need?’ he shouted.

  ‘Many as you’ve got!’ a man yelled back.

  ‘Lord who?’ the horseman asked, spurring towards us.

  ‘You,’ I muttered to Brihtwulf, who stepped forward.

  ‘I am Ealdorman Ealhstan.’

  ‘Then take your men across the bridge now, lord,’ the man ordered with scant courtesy, ‘and stop the bastards taking the fort.’

  Brihtwulf hesitated. Like me he had not imagined for a moment that we would go to the southern bank of the Temes. We had come to kill Æthelhelm and Ælfweard and those two would be here, on the northern bank, but suddenly I knew that fate had offered me a chance of pure gold. ‘Over the bridge,’ I muttered to Brihtwulf.

  ‘For God’s sake, hurry!’ the horseman said.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Finan called.

  ‘What do you think, grandpa? The pretty boy is here! Now move!’

  ‘I’ll kill that earsling,’ Finan muttered.

  I kept my head down. I was wearing the helmet I had kept on board Spearhafoc, the helmet that had belonged to my father. I had laced together the thick cheek-pieces of boiled leather to hide my face, yet I still feared that one of the West Saxons would recognise me. I had fought alongside them often enough, though on this hot day I was not dressed in my usual fine mail and crested helmet. Finan and I filed through the small gap in the barricade and the men who guarded it jeered us. ‘Keep walking grandpa!’

  ‘East Anglians!’

  ‘Mud babies!’

  ‘Hope you bastards have learned to fight,’ another added.

  ‘Enough!’ the horseman silenced his men.

  We started across the bridge’s uneven planks. The piers had been built by the Romans and I guessed they would stay solid for a thousand years, but the roadway was constantly being repaired. The last time I had been on the bridge it had had a great jagged gap where the Danes had ripped up the timber road. Alfred had repaired the damage, but still some planks were rotten and others moved alarmingly as we trod on them. There were gaps between the roadway’s timbers through which I could see the seething river churning white as it was channelled between the stone piers, and I wondered, as I did so often, how the Romans had built so well. ‘What in God’s name is Æthelstan doing?’ Finan asked me.

  ‘Capturing Lundene?’ I suggested.

  ‘How in God’s name does he hope to do that?’

  It was a good question. Æthelhelm had sufficient men to defend Lundene’s walls, yet Æthelstan had evidently appeared in front of the ramparts, and that could only mean that he meant to make an assault. The last I had heard was that Æthelstan was at Wicumun, which lay a long day’s march west of Lundene. I stared upriver as we crossed the bridge, but could see no movement beyond the city’s wall where the River Fleot poured the filth of tanneries, slaughteryards, and sewage into the Temes. The Saxon town, built beyond the valley of the Fleot, showed no sign of an army come to assault the city, but undoubtedly something had caused the city bells and horns to sound the alarm.

  ‘He’ll never get across those walls,’ Finan said.

  ‘We did.’

  ‘We got through them,’ Finan insisted, ‘we never tried to cross the ditch and wall. Still, it was a rare fight!’

  I instinctively touched my chest where Thor’s hammer was hidden beneath the mail. It had been years since Finan and I, with a small band of men, had used deceit to capture the Roman bastion that guarded Ludd’s Gate, one of Lundene’s western gates, and we had defended that bastion against a furious Danish assault. We had held the bastion and we had returned the city to Saxon rule. Now we had to fight for the city again. ‘Æthelstan must know the East Anglians are unhappy,’ I said, ‘so maybe he’s relying on that?’

  ‘If the East Anglians change sides,’ Finan sounded dubious.

  ‘If,’ I agreed.

  ‘They won’t fight unless they see we’re losing,’ Brihtwulf put in.

  ‘Then we mustn’t lose,’ I said. We had gone around two hundred paces, perhaps a third of the way across the long bridge. Father Oda had filed through the barricade last, lingering to talk with the horseman who commanded its guard, and he now hurried to catch up with us. ‘It seems King Æthelstan is to the north-west of the city,’ he said.

  ‘So he’s threatening the fort?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ve seen his banners,’ the priest said, ignoring my question, ‘and it appears he is here in force.’

  ‘The fort is the last place I’d assault,’ I said sourly.

  ‘Me too,’ Brihtwulf muttered. He was walking beside me.

  ‘And surely,’ Oda went on, ‘we’ll be of no use to the king if we’re south of the river?’

  ‘I thought you Danes were supposed to be good at warfare?’ I said.

  Oda bridled at that, but decided to take no offence. ‘It is the fate of Englaland,’ he said as we neared the southern end of the bridge. ‘That’s what we decide today, lord, the fate of Englaland.’

  ‘And that fate,’ I said, ‘will be decided here.’

  ‘How?’

  So I told him as we walked. We were not hurrying, despite the horseman’s last urgent request. As we neared the southern bank I could see more of the troops who still watched the fort from Suðgeweork’s houses, but they were making no apparent effort to assault the strong wooden ramparts. At the bridge’s end was a timber gateway with a fighting platform from which Æthelhelm’s flag with its leaping stag flapped in the brisk wind. Beneath it the gates were open and a harassed-looking man was beckoning to us. ‘Hurry!’ he called plaintively. ‘Up to the ramparts!’

  ‘Up to the ramparts!’ I echoed to my men.

  ‘Thank God you’re here,’ the harassed man said as we passed.

  ‘Onto the ramparts!’ Brihtwulf called.

  I stepped aside, drawing Finan with me. I beckoned for my six men, Oswi, Gerbruht, Folcbald, Immar, Beornoth and Immar to join me, then let the rest of the men pass us by. The fort was not large, but a quick look around the walls showed only about forty spearmen on the fighting platforms. A dozen guarded the wooden arch above the gate that led south, a gate that probabl
y needed twice that number if it was to be adequately defended. No wonder the harassed man had been pleased to see us. ‘Who are you?’ I asked him.

  ‘Hyglac Haruldson,’ he answered, ‘and you?’

  ‘Osbert,’ I said, using the name I had been given at birth before the death of my elder brother made my father give me his own name.

  ‘East Anglian?’ Hyglac asked. He was younger than me, but still looked old. He had sunken cheeks because of missing teeth, a short grey beard, grey hair showing beneath his helmet, and deep lines around his eyes and mouth. It was a warm morning, too warm to be wearing leather-lined mail, and his face was running with sweat.

  ‘East Anglian,’ I said, ‘and you?’

  ‘Hamptonscir,’ he said shortly.

  ‘And you command the fort?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘How many men do you have?’

  ‘Till you came? I had forty-two. We were supposed to have more, but they never came.’

  ‘We’re here now,’ I said, looking at my troops who were climbing the ladders that led to the timber ramparts, ‘and if I were you I’d shut the bridge gates.’ Hyglac frowned at that. ‘I’m not saying it’s likely,’ I went on, ‘but a small group of men could sneak around the fort and climb up to the bridge.’

  ‘I suppose they’re better closed,’ Hyglac allowed. He did not sound convinced, but was so relieved that we had arrived to bolster his garrison that he would probably have agreed to fight stark naked if I had suggested it.

  I told Gerbruht and Folcbald to push the great gates shut so that the men guarding the barricade at the bridge’s northern end could see nothing of what happened inside the small fort. ‘Are all your men West Saxons?’ I asked Hyglac.

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘So you’re one of Lord Æthelhelm’s tenants?’

  He seemed surprised to be asked. ‘I hold land from the abbot at Basengas,’ he said, ‘and he ordered me to bring my men.’ Which meant that the abbot at Basengas had received gold from Æthelhelm who had always paid generously for the clergy’s support. ‘Do you know what’s happening?’ Hyglac asked.

  ‘Pretty boy is to the city’s north-east,’ I said, ‘that’s all I know.’

  ‘Some of them are here too,’ Hyglac said, ‘too many! But you’re here, thank God, and they’ll not capture us now.’

  I nodded south. ‘How many are out there?’

  ‘Maybe seventy. Maybe more. They’re in the alleys, they’re hard to count.’

  ‘And they haven’t attacked?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Do you have horses?’ I asked Hyglac.

  ‘We left them in the city,’ he said. ‘There’s a stable there,’ he nodded towards the smaller of the two thatched buildings that lay inside the fort. ‘If you need it,’ he added, perhaps thinking we had horsemen following us across the bridge.

  ‘We came by boat,’ I said. Both the buildings looked new and both were made of stout timbers. I assumed the larger was to house the garrison, which in peacetime would surely not number more than twenty men, just sufficient to stand guard over whoever collected the custom dues from the merchants entering or leaving the city. I nodded towards the larger building. ‘That looks sturdy enough.’

  ‘Sturdy?’ Hyglac asked.

  ‘To keep prisoners,’ I explained.

  He grimaced. ‘Lord Æthelhelm won’t like that. He says we’re not to take prisoners. We’re to kill them all. Every last man.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘More land, you see? He says he’ll share out Mercian land to us. And give us all of Northumbria too!’

  ‘All of Northumbria!’

  Hyglac shrugged. ‘Not sure I want to be part of that war. They’re god-damned savages in Northumbria.’

  ‘They are,’ Finan said fervently.

  ‘I still need a place to keep prisoners,’ I said.

  ‘Lord Æthelhelm won’t like that,’ Hyglac warned me again.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘he won’t, because you’re the prisoners.’

  ‘Me?’ He was certain he had misheard or, at the least, misunderstood.

  ‘You,’ I said mildly. ‘I’m giving you a choice, Hyglac.’ I spoke softly, reasonably. ‘You can die here, or you can give me your sword. You and your men will be stripped of your mail, your weapons and boots, then put into that building. It’s that or death.’ I smiled. ‘Which is it to be?’

  He stared at me, still trying to understand what I had said. He opened his mouth, revealing three crooked yellow teeth, said nothing and so closed it.

  I held out my hand. ‘Your sword, Hyglac.’

  He still seemed dazed. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said, ‘lord of the Northumbrian savages.’ For a moment I thought he was going to piss himself with terror. ‘Your sword,’ I said politely, and he just gave it to me.

  It was that easy.

  A warrior called Rumwald led the Mercians who had threatened Suðgeweork’s fort. He was a short man with a round cheerful face, a straggling grey beard, and a brisk manner. He had led one hundred and thirty-five men into the fort. ‘You had us worried, lord,’ he confessed.

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘We were about to assault the fort, then your men showed up. I thought we’d never capture the place after that!’

  Yet captured it was, and we now had a little more than three hundred men, ten of whom I would leave to guard Hyglac’s garrison, who were safely imprisoned inside the larger of the two buildings. The West Saxons had been surly, resentful, and outnumbered, but they had little choice except to surrender, and once they had been disarmed and shut away we had opened the fort’s southern gates and shouted at the Mercians to join us. Rumwald had been reluctant to let his men approach the fort, fearing a trap, and in the end Brihtwulf had walked without shield or sword to persuade his fellow Mercians that we were allies.

  ‘What were you supposed to do after capturing the fort?’ I asked Rumwald. I had learned that he and his men had crossed the Temes at Westmynster, then walked along the river’s southern bank.

  ‘Tear up the bridge, lord.’

  ‘Tear up the bridge?’ I asked. ‘You mean destroy it?’

  ‘Rip up the planks, make sure the bastards couldn’t escape.’ He grinned.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘Æthelstan really means to assault the city?’ I had half convinced myself that the Mercian army had come merely to scout the city, to unsettle Æthelhelm, and then withdraw.

  ‘God love you, lord!’ Rumwald said happily. ‘He plans to assault once you open a gate for him.’

  ‘Once I open …’ I began, then ran out of words.

  ‘He got a message, lord, from Merewalh,’ Rumwald explained. ‘It said you would open one of the northern gates, and that’s why he’s come! He reckons he can take the city if there’s an open gate, and he doesn’t want half Æthelhelm’s army to escape, does he? Of course he didn’t mean this gate!’ Rumwald saw my confusion. ‘You did mean to open a gate, lord?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, remembering my wish, not two hours before, to flee Lundene. So Æthelstan now expected me to unlock the city for him? ‘Yes,’ I said again, ‘I do mean to open a gate. Do you have a banner?’

  ‘A banner?’ Rumwald asked, then nodded. ‘Of course, lord. We have King Æthelstan’s banner. You want me to tear that rag down?’ He nodded at Æthelhelm’s banner of the leaping stag that still flew above the fort’s northern arch.

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘I just want you to bring the flag with us. And keep it hidden till I tell you.’

  ‘So we’re going into the city, lord?’ Rumwald asked. He sounded excited.

  ‘We’re going into the city,’ I said. I did not want to, the night’s dread was still lurking inside me, making me fear that this was the day when the vast boulder of Saint Cuthbert’s cave would finally fall on me.

  I left Rumwald and climbed the ladder that led to the fighting platform above the bridge’s entrance, and from there I stared acro
ss the river. The city smoke was being blown eastwards and there was little sign that anything happened beneath that perpetual pall of smoke. There was still a squad of soldiers guarding the barricade at the bridge’s northern end, while another score of soldiers guarded the downstream wharves, presumably to stop men from deserting. I could see into Gunnald’s slave-yard where the only ship was the wreck and where no men moved. More usefully I could see up the hill that climbed from the bridge and could even see men slumping on benches outside the Red Pig tavern. If, as Father Oda had said, this was the day that would decide the fate of Englaland, then it all looked peaceful, strangely so. Finan joined me. He was hot and had taken off his helmet and was wearing his ragged rye-straw hat again. ‘Three hundred of us now,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered. Finan leaned on the wooden parapet. I was searching the sky for an omen, any omen.

  ‘Rumwald reckons Æthelstan has twelve hundred men,’ Finan remarked.

  ‘Fourteen hundred if Merewalh has joined him.’

  ‘Should be enough,’ Finan said, ‘so long as the East Anglians don’t fight too hard.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Finan repeated, and then, after a pause, ‘horsemen.’ He pointed and I saw two horsemen riding down the hill towards the far end of the bridge. They paused by the Red Pig and after a moment the men lounging on the benches stood, picked up their shields, crossed the street, and vanished into the western alleys. The horsemen came on down to the bridge, reining in at the barricade. ‘Those earslings at the barricade aren’t doing any good,’ Finan said. I supposed they were there to stop men crossing the river to escape the battle, but if any man did try to flee they would only reach Suðgeweork’s fort, which they must assume was still under Æthelhelm’s control. The small force at the barricade was pointless, and it seemed the horsemen had come to order them away. ‘Pity,’ Finan said.