by C. R. May
‘And so it has come to pass, the day which Archbishop Wulfstan has worked and longed for throughout the course of his honourable life — Deira and Bernicia are joined again — one kingdom — one folk — indivisible under God. Let your minds recall Northumbrians of old as we gather together at the moment of rebirth, hear again the songs, the skalds’ honeyed words as they told the tale of the great deeds of your ancestors. Bring again to mind those tales, stories of the days when the English of the North — of Æthelfrith, a king mighty in memory and deed — crushed the Gododdin and won a kingdom.
‘I look upon the faces before me today, here on this hill where the ghosts of those men now rejoice at the sight of a Northumbrian army under arms, and harbour no doubts the descendants of those heroes are lacking in manliness any more than the Norse and Danes who are now their neighbours and spear-brothers.
‘As I speak my sons sail a mighty fleet northwards to scour the coast of Alba, the jarls of Orkney cross the Ness, and the spear and axe men of the Sudreys march eastwards to close the net.
‘The men of Alba and Strathclyde have always thought it a fine thing to come south and harry our land — to kill, rape and burn — to drive off our cattle and carry away our kin to a life of hardship, servitude and thraldom.’ Erik paused to sweep the upturned faces with a flinty gaze. ‘It is all a bit of a lark then, a merry jaunt — but return the favour, carry fire and death to their land in return and it is no longer a game, but mournful songs and Sassenach this and Sassenach that.’ Erik stopped his pacing, raising the war axe to his lips in a lingering kiss as he let the moment stretch. He turned his gaze on them again, and the king of Northumbria felt the old familiar thrill course through him as he saw that his words had ignited the flames of war in their eyes. His voice became a growl then, and Erik traced a fingertip along Jomal’s razored edge before he regarded the army with the mien of a wolf. ‘Well, we shall pay them a visit nevertheless. Let us gift them a reason to sing their laments and dirges in peat smelling hovels this summer, when I send this Mael Colm to the Devil and take his crown for trinkets.’
14
Alba Aflame
Regenwold’s nostrils flared, his shirt billowing like a dragon ship’s sail as he sucked in another breath. ‘It is different somehow from the stench of our own crops burning, lord.’ The Northumbrian opened his eyes, turning his face to the king: ‘sweeter somehow.’
Erik recognised the satisfaction writ large on his features as the old warrior savoured the smell. He snorted. ‘That, my friend, is the smell of conquest.’
‘Aye, lord,’ the earl replied, ‘it is.’ His eyes closed and his chest swelled again. ‘It’s a smell I could grow accustomed to though.’
Erik fixed the big man with a look. ‘Until Mael Colm is dead or driven into exile and the folk here agree to take me in his place, I shall return every summer until Alba is nowt but a land of ash. Rest easy, while I am king of Northumbria no Scottish army shall ever raid south of the Forth again — they will bend their knee or be destroyed completely, on that you have my word.’
The pair rested for a moment, turning their gaze to the North. The fires had taken hold now despite the greenness of the crop, sheets of flame licking hungrily at the sky beneath a billowing column of smoke. ‘We will be doing them a kindness,’ Regenwold said with a jerk of his chin. ‘Carrying off all but the oldest and scrawniest now they have little to eat this winter.’ Erik looked. Men were moving among the captives, pushing them roughly into line with the shaft of their spears as the army prepared to move off. Others were still sifting the grain from the chaff, running hands long used to gauging the value of a horse or sheep over shoulders and arms; adding a squeeze to breast and buttock of the women to weed out those too saggy and past their prime. ‘The remainder can survive on fish stew and brewet,’ Erik said, ‘and be thankful that we have left them the means.’
Morcar Thane came across, throwing his leaders a smile as the horse came to a halt. ‘The men are set King Erik,’ he said, ‘and await your command.’
Erik nodded his thanks before turning his face back to the earl. ‘Happy hunting old friend; flush the fox from the briar and drive him towards the hounds, but remember what we agreed.’
‘Don’t worry lord,’ Regenwold replied as he hauled at the reins, ‘they will not catch us out. Whether we find the king or not, we shall harry the land between here and the Highlands, and meet you at the coast when the moon is full.’
Mindful that he was splitting his army in hostile territory, Erik ran through the dispositions once again as he watched him go. By any measure, two hundred mounted warriors constituted an army — a highly mobile, hard-hitting force — strong enough to stand and fight if the opportunity to kill or capture the king of Scots presented itself, but flexible enough to split up and warn Erik in the unlikely event that they were suddenly faced by an enemy in overwhelming numbers. With Oswulf Ealdwulfing’s army of Bebbanburh already detached to scathe the Fife peninsula to the East, Erik knew that he was taking a chance; but the best of the Scots were already bone piles alongside the roadway outside Corebricg following the fighting there, and it was a risk he was willing to take. With the crown of Northumbria and the king stool now safely back in York after the crowning at Gefrin, Erik was going to disprove the Finnish curse and go in search of another.
The clatter of hooves on the sun baked ground drew his eyes to the west, and Erik watched with pride as the men of York sidestepped the encroaching flames and were swallowed by the smoke. They were, he knew, the embodiment of his new kingdom; a mingling of all that was good and martial among the disparate folk he now ruled: Angle; Norse; Dane, Briton and others. Now he had set himself the task of adding the people of Alba and Strathclyde to his empire, a true empire of the North which would stretch from the wave lashed tip of Shetland to the English border. With such a force at his back, even the king in Winchester would be wary of his power. Perhaps, Erik mused as the wail of a child stopped abruptly nearby, he would be the one to finally subdue the West Saxons and add their lands to his own, to become the first man ever to rule the island of Britain in its entirety.
The child’s death had broken his line of thought, and returning his gaze to the front Erik could see that the men had finally formed the captives into something resembling an ordered group. Eager to move on now, Erik spurred his mount as he made his way to the front of the column. Ahead the roadway wound its way around a grassy knoll before disappearing into the woodland edge, and Erik drew rein as he gained the hillock and took a parting look at the devastation. The settlement had seemed an idyll when they had arrived. Nestled within a fold of land the score or so buildings, round huts of lime washed clay beneath roofs of tow coloured thatch, had been sheltered from the worst of the winter storms which roared in from the nearby German Sea. The river which bordered its northern limit was enough to carry salmon practically to their doors in the autumn, but not so deep and straight as to make the waters navigable for seagoing keels and the Vikings they bore. Added to the bream and roach they had found drying on racks along the riverside, and the nearby woodland providing autumn mast for the hogs, the unnamed village had been fairly typical for the area.
A report carried to him across the fields as a beam gave way under the strain, and as another roof collapsed in a pall of dirty grey smoke, Thorstein sniffed at his side. ‘Nice place.’ Erik nodded. ‘Aye, it was, and the sooner they recognise me as their rightful king the sooner it will be again.’ He gave a last look before finally turning the head of his ride to the north. The tail end of the army had cleared the village, and tongues of flame among the roof thatch showed where the last of the buildings had been torched. The smoke was being driven inland on a fitful breeze; high above a white tailed eagle rode the air on outstretched wings. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘The settlements are clustered as thick as fleas in a thrall’s breeks in these parts. Someone must know where Mael Colm is.’
The buzz up ahead drew him on, and Erik’s mouth widened into a grin as h
e crossed the ridge line and turned his face to the morning sun. Two leagues to the east, beyond the shimmering waters of a wide tidal inlet, the river banks and beaches were wooded by masts. Hauk had drawn rein a respectful distance ahead, and Erik called the scout back to his side with a sweep of an arm. Thorstein and Harald Eriksson hovered within earshot as the man came up. ‘Yes, lord?’
‘You have been down there?’
The scout gave a firm nod as he replied. ‘Yes, lord.’
‘Then tell us all you know.’
‘The place had been largely abandoned when the fleet arrived,’ Hauk reported. ‘Apart from a few crones and men too old to fight, the inhabitants of both settlements had fled inland.’
Erik nodded that he understood. It had been the same for days now; village after village emptied of folk when they arrived, anything of value carried away or buried until the storm had passed and it was safe to return. It was hardly surprising, Erik knew; only a blind fool would stay put, as the columns of smoke which marked his progress marched closer day by day.
The scout twisted in the saddle, squinting against the glare of the sun as he raised an arm to point. ‘That is Stroma at the mouth of the river, and the larger town to the north is known as Celurca.’
Erik followed the man’s outstretched arm. ‘One Norse, the other Scot?’
Hauk nodded. ‘Stroma is a small trading port. It seems that the lord in Celurca allows them to organise their own affairs so long as they pay him the skat he is due.’
Erik’s eyes widened in surprise. It was unusual for folk to be so welcoming in their land, but if he had learned anything since becoming king in York it had been that worshipping at the altar of the god of mammon was universal. If that was the case here he thought, as his eyes slid across the rooftops to tally the hulls by the harbour, it bode well for his plan to incorporate the kingdom within greater Northumbria. ‘Are all the ships we can see part of our fleet?’
Hauk nodded. ‘The traders sailed for Norway when they heard that Gamli’s ships were headed this way. It seems that they were in a bit of a hurry too,’ he said with a smile, ‘for they left a good part of their stock behind.’
Erik brightened at the news. It had been a week since the army had unearthed anything of value on the march, and although the object of the invasion was the death of the Scottish king and the harrying of his land, war was an expensive undertaking. No doubt the traders had their halls and families safely back in Norway and owed allegiance to his half-brother king Hakon, it was hardly a surprise that they had fled before the Eriksson ships arrived. Erik spoke again. ‘What did they find?’
‘Bearskins and antler, beaver and otter pelts mostly,’ the scout replied. ‘Barrels of wind dried cod and salmon too, so at least the army will eat well tonight.’
Erik nodded. ‘And our men in the town told you all this?’
‘No, lord,’ Hauk replied. ‘When we rode within a few miles of the outskirts, we came within hailing distance of several of our snekkja busily checking the creeks for any signs of enemy ships hiding there. They said they were not expecting trouble, but they were taking no chances before you arrived and have already thrown up an earthwork to defend the port.’
Erik studied the collection of halls and storehouses which went by the grand sounding name of Stroma. A ring of hard packed earth now enclosed the little trading post to landward, and although the ships of Erik’s fleet spilled out to either side he noticed with satisfaction that the largest and finest drekkar were safely within the perimeter. Nearer the river, the newness of their timber stark against the weatherbeaten buildings surrounding them, slave pens awaited their footsore cargo of misery.
Hauk spoke again, and a glimmer came into his eyes as he saw the king’s gaze wander back to the longships. ‘They told us the majority of our fleet are safely beached, but your son Gamli has taken a flotilla and led them further north looking for trouble.’
The group shared a laugh as Harald Eriksson made a quip. ‘It is unlike my big brother to be so warlike.’
Erik had heard enough. ‘Let us get down there,’ he said. ‘If the local laird and population of Celurca have turned their halls over to us, we should show our gratitude by accepting the gift.’
Erik clicked his tongue, guiding the horse onto the track which meandered down the back slope, and his heart lifted at the sights and smells of the nearby sea after weeks spent in field and woodland. Seabirds filled the air, the cries of Fulmar, Skua and Gannet as familiar to the Norsemen as the voices of friends and kin as they dove and wheeled over a sea as smooth as hammered iron. As the final mile of their journey came up Erik put back his heels, keen to hear the tales of raiding and plundering from the lips of his sons, and as the River Esk widened into a tidal pool the king was overjoyed to see the banners of the Erikssons coming out to greet him. With Gamli away in the North and Harald part of their father’s host, Guttorm led his younger brothers Sigurd and Ragnfrod out to meet the king; Erik drew rein as the walls of Stroma came into view, and his eyes drank in the sight of his younger sons as they approached at the head of their guards. Only Ragnfrod retained a touch of boyishness in his features, but his shoulders had widened after a summer at sea and the beard was thickening by the day. The sight of his sons was bittersweet to the king as he recalled the days of his own youth, but the pride he felt in them pushed the thought aside as they drew near. Soon they were before him, and Harald came up to Erik’s side as his younger brother hailed the king. ‘Welcome to Stroma, King Erik,’ Guttorm began. ‘We have prepared a hall and laid in meat and ale.’ He shot his father a smile. ‘We thought that you could put it to good use after weeks in the saddle.’
Erik chuckled. ‘You thought right.’ He urged his horse forward with a squeeze of his knees as the Erikssons fell in alongside. ‘So, tell me,’ Erik said as the horses walked on. ‘How did the raiding go, and have you heard a whisper about the whereabouts of our phantom king of Scots?’
‘The coast has been picked clean, father,’ came Guttorm’s glum reply. ‘With earl Oswald’s army scathing Fife and your here wasting the land to the north of the River Tay, we barely saw a soul.’ He jerked his head towards Celurca — ‘a bit like this place.’ Perched on rising ground to the north, the location offered a commanding view over the coastline in either direction. Erik ran his eyes over the town as they came closer. Protected by a ditch and bank topped by a stout palisade, the place had been constructed to withstand a siege; that the town had been abandoned without a fight meant that the inhabitants had been ordered to withdraw, presumably by Mael Colm. Erik shook his head. ‘And it was like this all down the coast?’
Guttorm nodded. ‘All the able bodied had fled inland before we arrived, taking their valuables with them.’
‘And no one knows anything about the location of the king?’
‘If you had seen the people left behind, father….’ Guttorm rolled his eyes. ‘They were not the type of folk accustomed to being privy to the king’s plans.’
For the first time since they had crossed into Alba, Erik began to grow uneasy. They were far to the North now, and although the Sudrey jarls and men of Orkney were drawing the net ever tighter around the places the enemy king could be, it was becoming more obvious by the day that there was a degree of control and strategic thinking behind the lack of opposition. By his reckoning he had led the army of York more than three hundred miles from home in his quest to slay the Scottish king, but although he had proven to them he was a war winner at Corebricg it wouldn’t do to push their loyalty too far. Unlike his own huskarls and shipmen who were oath sworn to him personally, the men of the levy owed their service for a fixed period of time. Mael Colm’s will-o’-the-wisp exploits since they had crossed into Alba was eating into that time, and as the distance from home grew and harvest month approached their anxiety grew. The messengers from earl Regenwold’s column told a similar story; a near deserted countryside inhabited by the old and infirm.
In the South the stories of king Eadred
’s incapacity in Winchester were too widely abroad to be a ruse, but the southern English were not short of war leaders, and the distance from York to the border at Ceasterford, the scene of his own victory over the men of Kent several years before, was less than a day’s ride. Gunnhild was no fool and she would put up a stout fight if the English did attack, but denuded of fighting men as it was, the city would fall. And where was Olaf Cuaran? Run out of York by Erik, the last he had heard his Norse rival was back in Dublin; but he had kin and oath men in Cumbraland to add to the men from Ireland, and it was a short hop across the sea to make them one. The last communication he had received from archbishop Wulfstan, still an enforced guest of the southern English for his part in Erik’s return, had intimated that king Eadred was growing tired of supporting the usurper after his many failures to secure York as an under king; but Eadred was ailing, and although the likely successor was a mere child other claimants could very likely come to the fore the moment the king died. Of all the kings on Midgard, Erik knew full-well that the succession wishes of even a mighty king like Harald Fairhair often fell by the wayside the moment he was laid in his Howe.
Erik turned his face to his son as the worries continued to gnaw at him. His earlier joy at arriving at the meeting place had vanished like summer smoke. ‘I saw that you have constructed slave pens from the hilltop. How many did you take?’
