The Burning Land sc-5

by Bernard Cornwell

  “Tell Harald his whore is here!” I called over the river, “and that she’s noisy! Maybe we’ll cut out her tongue and send it to Harald for his supper!”

  “Goat turd,” she spat at me, then reached over the palisade’s top and plucked out an arrow that had lodged in one of the oak trunks. Steapa immediately moved to disarm her, but I waved him back. Skade ignored us. She was gazing fixedly at the arrowhead which, with a sudden wrench, she freed from the feathered shaft, which she tossed over the wall. She gave me a glance, raised the arrowhead to her lips, closed her eyes, and kissed the steel. She muttered some words I could not hear, touched her lips to the steel again, then pushed it beneath her gown, hesitated, then jabbed the point into one of her breasts. She gave me a triumphant look as she brought the bloodstained steel into view, then she flung the arrowhead into the river and lifted her hands and face to the late summer sky. She screamed to get the attention of the gods, and when the scream faded she turned back to me. “You’re cursed, Uhtred,” she said with a tone she might have used to remark on unremarkable weather.

  I resisted the impulse to touch the hammer hanging about my neck because to have done so would have shown that I feared her curse, which instead I pretended to dismiss with a sneer. “Waste your breath, whore,” I said, yet I still moved my hand to my sword and rubbed a finger across the silver cross embedded in Serpent-Breath’s hilt. The cross meant nothing to me, except it had been a gift from Hild, once my lover and now an abbess of extraordinary piety. Did I think that touching the cross was a substitute for the hammer? The gods would not think so.

  “When I was a child,” Skade said suddenly, and still using a conversational tone as though she and I were old friends, “my father beat my mother senseless.”

  “Because she was like you?” I asked.

  She ignored that. “He broke her ribs, an arm, and her nose,” she went on, “and later that day he took me to the high pastures to help bring back the herd. I was twelve years old. I remember there were snowflakes flying and I was frightened of him. I wanted to ask why he had hurt my mother, but I didn’t like to speak in case he beat me, but then he told me anyway. He said he wanted to marry me to his closest friend, and my mother had opposed the idea. I hated it too, but he said I would marry the man anyway.”

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” I asked.

  “So I pushed him over a bluff,” she said, “and I remember him falling through the snowflakes and I watched him bounce on the rocks and I heard him scream. His back was broken.” She smiled. “I left him there. He was still alive when I brought the herd down. I scrambled down the rocks and pissed on his face before he died.” She looked calmly at me. “That was my first curse, Lord Uhtred, but not my last. I will lift the curse on you if you let me go.”

  “You think you can frighten me into giving you back to Harald?” I asked, amused.

  “You will,” she said confidently, “you will.”

  “Take her away,” I ordered, tired of her.

  Harald came at midday. One of Steapa’s men brought me the news and I climbed again to the ramparts to discover that Harald Bloodhair was on the river’s farther bank with fifty companions, all in mail. His banner showed an ax blade and its pole was surmounted by a wolf-skull that had been painted red.

  He was a big man. His horse was big too, but even so Harald Bloodhair seemed to dwarf the stallion. He was too distant for me to see him clearly, but his yellow hair, long, thick, and unstained with any blood, was plainly visible, as was his broad beard. For a time he just stared at Æscengum’s wall, then he unbuckled his sword belt, threw the weapon to one of his men, and spurred his horse into the river. It was a warm day, but his mail was still covered by a great cloak of black bear fur that made him appear monstrously huge. He wore gold on his wrists and about his neck, and more gold decorated his horse’s bridle. He urged the stallion to the river’s center where the water surged over his boot tops. Any of the archers on Æscengum’s wall could have shot an arrow, but he had ostenta tiously disarmed himself, which meant he wanted to talk, and I gave orders that no one was to loose a bow at him. He took off his helmet and searched the men crowding the rampart until he saw Osferth in his circlet. Harald had never seen Alfred and mistook the bastard for the father. “Alfred!” he shouted.

  “The king doesn’t talk with brigands,” I called back.

  Harald grinned. His face was broad as a barley-shovel, his nose hooked and crooked, his mouth wide, his eyes as feral as any wolf’s. “Are you Uhtred Turdson?” he greeted me.

  “I know you’re Harald the Gutless,” I responded with a dutiful insult.

  He gazed at me. Now that he was closer I could see that his yellow hair and beard were dirt-flecked, ropy and greasy, like the hair from a corpse buried in dung. The river surged by his stallion. “Tell your king,” Harald called to me, “that he can save himself much trouble by giving me his throne.”

  “He invites you to come and take it,” I said.

  “But first,” he leaned forward and patted his horse’s neck, “you will return my property.”

  “We have nothing of yours,” I said.

  “Skade,” he said flatly.

  “She’s yours?” I asked, pretending surprise. “But surely a whore belongs to whoever can pay her?”

  He gave me a look of instant hatred. “If you have touched her,” he said, pointing a leather-gloved finger at me, “or if any of your men have touched her, then I swear on Thor’s prick I’ll make your deaths so slow that your screams will stir the dead in their caves of ice.” He was a fool, I thought. A clever man would have pretended the woman meant little or nothing to him, but Harald was already revealing his price. “Show her to me!” he demanded.

  I hesitated, as if making up my mind, but I wanted Harald to see the bait and so I ordered two of Steapa’s men to fetch Skade. She arrived with the rope still around her neck, yet such was her beauty and her calm dignity that she dominated the rampart. I thought, at that moment, that she was the most queenlike of any woman I had ever seen. She moved to the palisade and smiled at Harald, who kicked his horse a few paces forward. “Have they touched you?” he shouted up to her.

  She gave me a mocking look before answering. “They’re not men enough, my lord,” she called.

  “Promise me!” he shouted, and the desperation was plain in his voice.

  “I promise you,” she answered, and her voice was a caress.

  Harald wheeled his horse so it was sideways to me, then raised his gloved hand to point at me. “You showed her naked, Uhtred Turdson.”

  “Would you like me to show her that way again?”

  “For that you will lose your eyes,” he said, prompting Skade to laugh. “Let her go now,” Harald went on, “and I won’t kill you! Instead I’ll keep you blind and naked, on a rope’s end, and display you to all the world.”

  “You yelp like a puppy,” I called.

  “Take the rope from her neck,” Harald ordered me, “and send her to me now!”

  “Come and take her, puppy!” I shouted back. I was feeling elated. Harald, I thought, was proving to be a headstrong fool. He wanted Skade more than he wanted Wessex, indeed more than he wanted all the treasures of Alfred’s kingdom. I remember thinking that I had him exactly where I wished him to be, on the end of my lead, but then he turned his horse and gestured toward the growing crowd of warriors on the river bank.

  And from the trees that grew thick on that far bank emerged a line of women and children. They were our people, Saxons, and they were roped together because they had been taken for slavery. Harald’s men, as they ravaged through eastern Wessex, had doubtless captured every child and young woman they could find, and, when they had finished amusing themselves, would ship them to the slave markets of Frankia. But these women and infants were brought to the river’s edge where, on an order from Harald, they were made to kneel. The youngest child was about the age of my own Stiorra, and I can still see that child’s eyes as she stared up at me.
She saw a warlord in shining glory and I saw nothing but pitiable despair.

  “Start,” Harald called to his men.

  One of his warriors, a grinning brute who looked as if he could out-wrestle an ox, stepped behind the woman at the southern end of the line. He was carrying a battle-ax that he swung high, then brought down so that the blade split her skull and buried itself in her trunk. I heard the crunch of the blade in bone over the noise of the river, and saw blood jetting higher than Harald on his horse. “One,” Harald called, and gestured to the blood-spattered axman who stepped briskly to his left to stand behind a child who was screaming because she had just seen her mother murdered. The red-bladed ax rose.

  “Wait,” I called.

  Harald held up his hand to check the ax, then gave me a mocking smile. “You said something, Lord Uhtred?” he asked. I did not answer. I was watching a swirl of blood vanish and fade downstream. A man severed the rope tying the dead woman to her child, then kicked the corpse into the river. “Speak, Lord Uhtred, please do speak,” Harald said with exaggerated courtesy.

  There were thirty-three women and children left. If I did nothing then all would die. “Cut her free,” I said softly.

  The rope round Skade’s neck was cut. “Go,” I told her.

  I hoped she would break her legs as she jumped from the palisade, but she landed lithely, climbed the ditch’s far slope, then walked to the river’s edge. Harald spurred his horse to her, held out a hand, and she swung up behind his saddle. She looked at me, touched a finger to her mouth, and held the hand toward me. “You’re cursed, Lord Uhtred,” she said, smiling, then Harald kicked his horse back to the far bank where the women and children had been led back into the thick-leaved trees.

  So Harald had what he wanted.

  But Skade wanted to be queen, and Harald wanted me blind.

  “What now?” Steapa asked in his deep growling voice.

  “We kill the bastard,” I said. And, like a faint shadow on a dull day, I sensed her curse.

  That night I watched the glow of Harald’s fires; not the nearer ones in Godelmingum, though they were thick enough, but the fainter glimmer of more distant blazes, and I noted that much of the sky was now dark. For the last few nights the fires had been scattered across eastern Wessex, but now they drew closer and that meant Harald’s men were concentrating. He doubtless hoped that Alfred would stay in Æscengum and so he was gathering his army, not to besiege us, but probably to launch a sudden and fast attack on Alfred’s capital, Wintanceaster.

  A few Danes had crossed the river to ride round Æscengum’s walls, but most were still on the far bank. They were doing what I wanted, yet my heart felt dour that night and I had to pretend confidence. “Tomorrow, lord,” I told Edward, Alfred’s son, “the enemy will cross the river. They will be pursuing me, and you will let them all get past the burh, wait one hour and then follow.”

  “I understand,” he said nervously.

  “Follow them,” I said, “but don’t get into a fight till you reach Fearnhamme.”

  Steapa, standing beside Edward, frowned. “Suppose they turn on us?”

  “They won’t,” I said. “Just wait till his army has gone past, then follow it all the way to Fearnhamme.”

  That sounded an easy enough instruction, but I doubted it would be so easy. Most of the enemy would cross the river in a great rush, eager to pursue me, but the stragglers would follow all day. Edward had to judge when the largest part of Harald’s army was an hour ahead and then, ignoring those stragglers, pursue Harald to Fearnhamme. It would be a difficult decision, but he had Steapa to advise him. Steapa might not have been clever, but he had a killer’s instinct that I trusted.

  “At Fearnhamme,” Edward began, then hesitated. The half- moon, showing between clouds, lit his pale and anxious face. He looked like his father, but there was an uncertainty in him which was not surprising. He was only about seventeen years old, yet he was being given a grown man’s responsibility. He would have Steapa with him, but if he was to be a king then he would have to learn the hard business of making choices.

  “Fearnhamme will be simple,” I said dismissively. “I shall be north of the river with the Mercians. We’ll be on a hill protected by earthworks. Harald’s men will cross the ford to attack us, and you will attack their rear. When you do that we attack their vanguard.”

  “Simple?” Steapa echoed with a trace of amusement.

  “We crush them between us,” I said.

  “With God’s help,” Edward said firmly.

  “Even without that,” I snarled.

  Edward questioned me for the better part of an hour, right until the bell summoned him to prayers. He was like his father. He wanted to understand everything and have everything arranged in neat lists, but this was war and war was never neat. I believed Harald would follow me, and I trusted Steapa to bring the greater part of Alfred’s army behind Harald, but I could give Edward no promises. He wanted certainty, but I was planning battle, and I was relieved when he went to pray with his father.

  Steapa left me and I stood alone on the rampart. Sentries gave me room, somehow aware of my baleful mood, and when I heard footsteps I ignored them, hoping that whoever it was would go away and leave me in peace.

  “The Lord Uhtred,” a gently mocking voice said when the steps paused behind me.

  “The Lady Æthelflæd,” I said, not turning to look at her.

  She came and stood beside me, her cloak touching mine. “How is Gisela?”

  I touched Thor’s hammer at my neck. “About to give birth again.”

  “The fourth child?”

  “Yes,” I said, and shot a prayer toward the house of the gods that Gisela would survive the birth. “How is Ælfwynn?” I asked. Ælfwynn was Æthelflæd’s daughter, still an infant.

  “She thrives.”

  “An only child?”

  “And going to stay that way,” Æthelflæd said bitterly and I looked at her profile, so delicate in the moonlight. I had known her since she was a small child when she had been the happiest, most carefree of Alfred’s children, but now her face was guarded, as though she shrank from bad dreams. “My father’s angry with you,” she said.

  “When is he not?”

  She gave a hint of a smile, quickly gone. “He wants you to give an oath to Edward.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why won’t you?”

  “Because I’m not a slave to be handed on to a new master.”

  “Oh!” she sounded sarcastic, “you’re not a woman?”

  “I’m taking my family north,” I said.

  “If my father dies,” Æthelflæd said, then hesitated. “When my father dies, what happens to Wessex?”

  “Edward rules.”

  “He needs you,” she said. I shrugged. “As long as you live, Lord Uhtred,” she went on, “the Danes hesitate to attack.”

  “Harald didn’t hesitate.”

  “Because he’s a fool,” she said scornfully, “and tomorrow you’ll kill him.”

  “Perhaps,” I said cautiously.

  A murmur of voices made Æthelflæd turn to see men spilling from the church. “My husband,” she said, investing those two words with loathing, “sent a message to Lord Aldhelm.”

  “Aldhelm leads the Mercian troops?”

  Æthelflæd nodded. I knew Aldhelm. He was my cousin’s favorite and a man of unbounded ambition, sly and clever. “I hope your husband ordered Aldhelm to Fearnhamme,” I said.

  “He did,” Æthelflæd said, then lowered and quickened her voice, “but he also sent word that Aldhelm was to withdraw north if he thought the enemy too strong.”

  I had half suspected that would happen. “So Aldhelm is to preserve Mercia’s army?”

  “How else can my husband take Wessex when my father dies?” Æthelflæd asked in a voice of silken innocence. I glanced down at her, but she just gazed at the fires of Godelmingum.

  “Will Aldhelm fight?” I asked her.

  “Not if
it means weakening Mercia’s army,” she said.

  “Then tomorrow I shall have to persuade Aldhelm to his duty.”

  “But you have no authority over him,” Æthelflæd said.

  I patted Serpent-Breath’s hilt. “I have this.”

  “And he has five hundred men,” Æthelflæd said. “But there is one person he will obey.”

  “You?”

  “So tomorrow I ride with you,” she said.

  “Your husband will forbid it,” I answered.

  “Of course he will,” she said calmly, “but my husband won’t know. And you will do me a service, Lord Uhtred.”

  “I am ever at your service, my lady,” I said, too lightly.

  “Are you?” she asked, turning to look up into my eyes.

  I looked at her sad lovely face, and knew her question was serious. “Yes, my lady,” I said gently.

  “Then tomorrow,” she said bitterly, “kill them all. Kill all the Danes. Do that for me, Lord Uhtred,” she touched my hand with the tips of her fingers, “kill them all.”

  She had loved a Dane and she had lost him to a blade, and now she would kill them all.

  There are three spinners at the root of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, and they weave our threads, and those spinners had made a skein of purest gold for Æthelflæd’s life, but in those years they wove that bright thread into a much darker cloth. The three spinners see our future. The gift of the gods to humankind is that we cannot see where the threads will go.

  I heard songs from the Danes camped across the river.

  And tomorrow I would draw them to the old hill by the river. And there kill them.

  FOUR

  Next day was a Thursday, Thor’s Day, which I took as a good omen. Alfred had once proposed renaming the days of the week, suggesting the Thursday become Maryday, or perhaps it was Haligastday, but the idea had faded like dew under the summer sun. In Christian Wessex, whether its king liked it or not, Tyr, Odin, Thor, and Frigg were still remembered each week.