The Day of the Wolf

by C. R. May

  If the journey from England had been long, arduous and more than a little unsafe — only the previous year a predecessor, Ælfsige, had frozen to death making the same journey — it only mirrored the passage the country had made through the turbulent years that had just gone over. But the new king Edgar was a fine young man who was already bending the country to his will Dunstan reflected as he walked, and the churchman sent a prayer to God the Father in this most Holy place that the latest scion of Wessex to hold the title Rex Anglorum be spared the tribulations which had plagued his predecessors. The soft shuffling of feet dragged the archbishop back from his thoughts, and Dunstan saw that he had reached Pope John’s private chambers as the guards came to attention and the doors were drawn inward. The light was dazzling as he came into the room, the combination of a wall set with high windows and the brilliance of the southern sun momentarily blinding eyes more accustomed to gloomy days and gloomier interiors; but the figure of the Pope hardened from the glare, and the Englishman brightened as he saw again the warmth in the younger man’s smile. ‘Dunstan,’ the pope beamed, ‘welcome to my chamber.’

  Dunstan lowered his gaze in supplication, but before he could utter a word the prelate rested a hand on his shoulder and spoke again. ‘There is no need for formality here, we are the same you and I — men in the service of God. Come,’ he said, guiding the archbishop towards a shady corner, ‘let us take refreshment away from the sun’s glare.’ Dunstan cast a look about the room as he sank into a chair. Every surface in the long rectangular room was covered with scenes from the Holy Bible, every projection, ledge or shelf gilt as shafts of light striped the floor. The pope settled into the chair directly opposite, and he shot the archbishop a smile as he patted the familiar stack with a hand. ‘You have my thanks Dunstan,’ he said, ‘for bringing this story to me.’

  Dunstan inclined his head. ‘If it is far too good a tale to destroy out of hand, it is far too dangerous to remain in the North, Your Holiness. I rather hoped that you could find a home for it in the papal collection?’

  Drinks appeared on the small table at each man’s shoulder, and as the servant bowed and backed away the pope smiled his thanks. Pope John took a sip of wine, but as the Holy Father’s eyes flicked up the archbishop flinched inwardly as he caught a glimpse of the man within. Not only was Pope John XII a fighting man, a warrior Pope who was frequently at war with the neighbouring Italian states, but a young man who found it difficult to resist temptations of the flesh. Only that summer he had led a papal army against the Lombards, and the Englishman had heard it said since his arrival in the city that the palace was known to the locals as the finest whorehouse in Rome. The pope transferred the manuscript from the table to his lap as they drank, and Dunstan watched with interest as the head of the church flicked through the leaves. ‘This Erik Haraldsson was quite a man,’ he said finally. ‘Indeed, five times a king. I have to admit that the tale of his life kept me from my bed until the wee small hours.’ Pope John lifted his gaze, fixing the older man with a look. ‘I wonder if he was aware of how close he came to realising his dream of an empire of Britain? If king Eadred had not been so open-handed with his silver to buy off this Bernician earl and his Scottish nephew, how likely is it that the English south would have returned to barbarism?’

  Dunstan shifted uncomfortably as he sought to reply with more confidence than he felt. ‘It is true that Eadred had been ailing,’ he admitted, ‘and was fated to die soon after Erik’s own death. His brother Eadwy who inherited the crown was a disaster who only succeeded in dividing the kingdom. But the Lord ensured that the tyrant’s rule was brief,’ he said earnestly, ‘and our new king Edgar is strong and just.’

  ‘But imagine if Erik had lived but a few more months, to the following spring or summer — what then?’ The Roman patted the parchment again, and as a flash of mischief came into his eyes Dunstan realised with a jolt that the pope, God’s representative of earth, saw the hoary Norseman not as the Devil made flesh and bone but a kindred spirit worthy of admiration. Pope John raised a forefinger, and as a servant detached himself from the shadows he handed the book the monks in Glastonbury knew by its Norwegian name Eriksmál, the Lay of Erik, across. The brothers’ fervour for the tale and the poems it contained had been the reason that Dunstan had decided to bring the manuscript to Rome; even in death the deeds of Erik Haraldsson inspired men to hanker for more in their own life, and kept the God-fearing from their devotions.

  John spoke again as the servant awaited his instructions. ‘And Wulfstan, the archbishop of York, never suspected that his communications were being intercepted by your men during the entire course of his incarceration?’

  Dunstan smiled at that memory. It had been one of the greatest services he had bestowed upon his king and people, and instrumental in the Norseman’s death on the wintry ridge top that day. ‘It would appear not, for both Erik and Wulfstan are long dead and earl Oswulf has ruled in York as a liegeman of the king of England these past six years. Northumbrian independence died out with the pair,’ he gloated. ‘They have finally been brought to heel, and we shall ensure that they never rise again.’

  Pope John nodded. ‘I can see that you are wary of them, and you are right to be so. But before Erik’s story is consigned to the vaults, perhaps we could listen to a snippet or two? It is doubtful that it will see the light of day again.’ John turned his face to the servant waiting silently a dozen paces away, and Dunstan found that he approved of the choice as the pope spoke a command. ‘Read a passage from the missive to archbishop Wulfstan by Erik’s widow; skip the lamentations at the beginning, and take up the tale where the skald Sturla Godi described the king’s death.’ The Roman turned his head, and archbishop Dunstan nodded his agreement at the words which followed; the Norse may be untamed heathens, but he would willingly admit that the best of their poetry contained more than a dash of brutish charm. ‘Transition as seamlessly as possible into the part of the skald’s poem where Bloodaxe leads his men into Óðinn’s hall if you would.’ The churchmen shared a look, and as they raised a glass in celebration Dunstan nodded again. ‘We are both in accord,’ John confirmed. ‘That would be a fitting place to leave Erik’s tale, after all that has gone before.’

  The retainer shuffled the leaves as he sought to follow his master’s instructions, and as pope and archbishop sipped, he cleared his throat and began:

  ‘Norwegian battle cries filled the air behind me as the horse skidded down the face of the bank, and by the time we were across the ditch the sound of fighting was beginning to build again. It was the matter of a few moments before I had gained the roadway, but casting a look to the East I saw to my dismay that the high point from which I had intended to witness the battle was denied me as yet more horsemen were making their way to the fort up the road there. With the westward route through Hreyrr Camp blocked as Ragnfrod Eriksson and his men fell upon the enemy wing, there was only one place to go if I was to witness the final battle as was the king’s wish, and I hauled at the reins, guiding the horse down into the gully which bordered the fortress to the South, across the beck and thence up on to the crag known as White Brow. Looking back I realised at once that I had reached the promontory with little time to spare, as a spear flew from King Erik’s hand to signal the beginning of the attack.

  ‘Erik Bloodaxe led the final assault in person, striding clear of his oath sworn to take up position at the head of the svinfylking, and as his huskarls moved forward to protect my lord’s flanks his jog became a sprint. The crew of the Draki channelled into the king’s wake as he gathered speed, and before the wedge was half formed he had crashed into the enemy line. Jomal swung then, and as shields and heads alike were riven and splintered by the king’s whirring axe blade the men of Strathclyde recoiled in terror. Erik’s bloodied axe war banner, the sigil I had proudly carried in battles across the northern lands showed where Kolbein Herjolfsson was fulfilling his vow to die at our lord’s side, and as the forward momentum drained from the attack
and numbers began to tell, I looked on sadly as the Norwegians were enveloped.

  ‘More foemen were entering the fort as parties of riders reached the place of battle, and within moments the Norwegian attacks had been reduced to clusters of heroes as their enemies swarmed and jostled to be in at the kill. Very soon the king’s swine head had been parcelled up into small knots of fighting men, and as my lord’s battle flag fell and the last stand was overwhelmed I took a final look before riding away.

  ‘All across the interior of the fort the enemy were in the ascendant as numbers triumphed over valour; but at that moment in the western sky the setting sun broke free of the clouds, and as a shameful roar told every man within earshot that a giant had fallen I witnessed Bifröst, the rainbow bridge to Asgard, harden from the gloom.’

  Ravens cawed, a wolf growled: men were treading the quivering road. Óðinn’s eye opened; the High One spoke:

  ‘What kind of dream is this, that I was a little before daybreak preparing Valhöll for an army of the slain?

  ‘I awakened the heroes; I asked them to get up, to strew the benches, to rinse the drinking cups; Valkyries to bring wine as if a leader should come.

  ‘I expect certain glorious men from the world of the living, so my heart is glad.’

  ‘What thunders there as if a thousand were stirring — a mighty host?’ said Bragi.

  ‘All the bench planks creak, as if Balder were coming back into the halls of Óðinn.’

  ‘The wise Bragi should not blather,’ replied the Allfather, ‘when you know the truth full-well: the clamour is made for Erik, who must be coming here, a prince into Valhöll.

  ‘Sigmund, rise up quickly and go to meet the ruler. Invite him in, for it is Erik I am expecting now.’

  ‘Why do you expect Erik,’ asked Sigmund, ‘rather than other kings?’

  Óðinn smiled his wolf smile. ‘Because he has reddened his blade in many lands, and borne a bloody sword…’

  Afterword

  We know so little of the events which occurred throughout Erik’s long and active life, that historians cannot even agree when he reigned in York. As in the previous volumes in this trilogy, I have thought it safest to base the timeline on the only contemporary record for those years to have come down to us in full, the various annals known collectively as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Here Erik’s second period as ruler is bookended by the following entries:

  952: In this year the Northumbrians drove out king Olaf and accepted Erik, son of Harald, as king.

  954: In this year the Northumbrians drove out Erik, and Eadred succeeded to the Northumbrian kingdom.

  It is hardly expansive, but fortunately we have a few later sources which add snippets of information to the bare-boned records of the day. Archbishop Wulfstan of York was seized upon visiting the southern English kingdom, for what a contemporary recorded as: “accusations had often been made to the king against him.” William of Malmesbury writing in the first half of the twelfth century with the aid of documents now lost to history could add: “He is said to have connived at the shifts of allegiance by his compatriots.” Wulfstan may have been held in the south for the entirety of Erik’s second reign in York, and although he was released soon after Erik’s downfall he was never allowed to return to Northumbria, dying within a few years to be buried at Oundle in Northamptonshire.

  But if the southern English appear to have been militarily paralysed by the ongoing illness of king Eadred, their wealth could fight almost as effectively. The Annals of Ulster mention a great battle late in the year 952 in northern Britain between the Norse and an alliance of Scots, Welsh and Saxons, ie the Britons of Strathclyde and the English of the old kingdom of Bernicia ruling from Bamburgh. The battle ended in a crushing victory for the Norsemen, and although the commander of the army is not named, it seems clear from the fact that Erik remained king in York following the fight that he had been the leader of the victorious force.

  If the invasion of 952 was aimed at the removal of Erik, he was not the kind of man to take such a thing lying down. The counter invasion I have based on a passage from the Saga of Hakon the Good, Erik’s half-brother who we saw replace him on the throne of Norway at the end of book one, Bloodaxe. Here it states that — “Erik became very bold and had a large army, and could rely so much on his men that he drove far inland, where he harried and pursued folk…”

  Erik had of course already been accepted as overlord of the Orkneys (which included the northern part of modern day Scotland as far south as the Moray Firth), the Western Isles and the adjacent mainland by this time, so with Erik now king in York it can reasonably said that the kingdom of Alba was now surrounded by hostile armies. If the campaign of 952 had been intended to stop this situation developing, the scale of the defeat placed the Scots and their allies in a precarious position, and a retaliatory invasion on three fronts would have been a distinct possibility.

  Erik Haraldsson did visit the shrine of St Cuthbert, then situated in modern day Chester-le-Street, and signed the Liber Vitae of the community, a kind of visitors book where his name can still be seen. The gifts I have described in the tale are also still extant, though who gifted the gold and garnet cross we will never know. Similarly the crowning as king of a reunified Northumbria on the site of the old royal hall at Gefrin is invention on my part.

  The king of Alba, Mael Colm (Máel Coluim mac Domnaill) escaped the battle in 952, but he was clearly facing a challenge to his authority at home. Whether this was a result of his defeat or an inability to defend the kingdom from Erik we cannot now say, but it seems that there was a rival party developing around the person of his cousin Indulf. This situation appears to have come to a head in 954. In this year, The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba records that Mael Colm took an army into Moray “and slew Cellach,” one of Indulf’s supporters, while the Annals of Ulster add that the king was killed late in the year at Fetteresso, and it seemed not unreasonable to link the two in this novel.

  The various genealogies and kinship arrangements outlined by Gunnhild in her conversation with Erik in Chapter 20 were reality, and with the rise of Indulf mac Causantin in Alba and the encouragement of the southern English, earl Oswulf in Bamburgh seems to have been the prime mover in Erik’s ultimate defeat. An Icelandic account known as Fagrskinna appears to form the basis of most of the subsequent saga references to Erik’s fall, and the document is believed to have drawn on the now lost eulogy known as Eriksmál, part of which was quoted at the very end of Chapter 27. Thought to have been composed in Orkney shortly after the events they describe for Erik’s widow Gunnhild the original is now unfortunately lost, but in addition to the Lay quoted in part at the very end of my tale, the following passage sheds a little light on Erik’s last fight: “Erik had so great an army that five kings followed him because he was a valiant man and a battle winner. He trusted in himself and his strength so much that he went far up country, and everywhere he went with warfare. Then came against him king Olaf (there are various theories as to who is being referred to here), a tributary king of king Edmund (in reality the English king was of course Eadred). They fought and Erik was routed by the army of the land; and he fell with all his force.” The Saga of Hakon the Good appears to have used the same source when it describes: “A dreadful battle ensued in which many English fell. But for every one who fell three came in his place out of the country behind, and when evening came on the loss of men turned against the Norsemen and many were killed.”

  Among English sources the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are of little help as we can see from the entry at the beginning of this Afterword, but Roger of Wendover’s Flores Historiarum of all the later records is unequivocal in naming Erik’s opponent and the location of the last battle: “King Erik was treacherously killed by Earl Maccus in a certain lonely place called Stainmore...betrayed by Earl Oswulf, and then afterwards King Eadred ruled in these districts.” By describing Eadred’s subsequent rule as in these districts, this passage lends weight to the theory that Roger
of Wendover had access to local documents now completely lost to us, almost certainly a copy of the History of the Ancient Northumbrians, a contemporary work which was compiled in York itself. We can only mourn its loss, but it does serve to elevate the reliability of this passage, and Roger’s work in general, above the majority of our sources for this period.

  Even today Stainmore is a remote area where the modern counties of Cumbria, County Durham and North Yorkshire meet. The modern A66 Trunk Road shadows the route of the old Roman Road and crosses the Pennines via the Stainmore Gap, where substantial remains of the old Roman marching camp can still be seen after surviving almost two millennia. Known as Rey Cross (Royal Cross) after the stone cross erected within the walls of the fort by William the Conqueror and the Scottish king Malcolm III as a border marker between their respective domains, local legend held that the mound upon which it stood was the burial place of Erik. Although this was disproved in the twentieth century when the weathered stump which is all that remains of the cross was moved to accommodate road widening, it does show that there was still a memory of Erik’s last fight in the area up to the present day, and it seemed the ideal location in which to describe the king’s last stand.

  With Erik’s death, earl Oswulf became the sole ruler of Northumbria as a sub king of the southern English. Indulf became the king of Alba and the lands of Lothian, including the hill fort of Eidyn burh (Edinburgh) passed from English to Scottish ownership the very same year — an event which looks very much like the sharing out of spoils between kinsmen and allies, now that Oswulf’s power base has shifted south to York.