Sword of Kings (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 12)

by Bernard Cornwell

  My first argument was that if we waited then Æthelhelm’s forces must inevitably grow stronger, and that was true, yet already we were woefully outnumbered by his garrison in Lundene. Merewalh had given me one hundred and eighty men and we would assault a city garrisoned by at least a thousand and, quite probably, two thousand.

  Those odds should have dissuaded any man from following me, but I had made a second argument that had convinced them. I spoke of the East Anglians we had met in the Dead Dane tavern, how they had been reluctant to fight. ‘They were only there because their lord demanded their presence,’ I had said, ‘and not one wanted to fight.’

  ‘Which doesn’t mean they won’t fight,’ Merewalh had pointed out.

  ‘But for who?’ I had retorted. ‘They hate the West Saxons! Which was the last army to invade East Anglia?’

  ‘The West Saxon.’

  ‘And East Anglia,’ I had argued, ‘is a proud country. It has lost its king, it has been ruled by Danes, but now Wessex has imposed a king on them and they don’t love him.’

  ‘But will they love us?’ Merewalh had asked.

  ‘They will follow the enemy of their enemy,’ I had said, and did I believe that?

  It was possible that some East Anglians would fight on the side of Mercia while others might refuse to fight altogether, but it is hard to persuade men to rebel against their lord. Men hold land from their lord, they look to their lord for food in hard times, for silver in good times, and even if that lord served a harsh and cruel king, he is still their lord. They might not fight with enthusiasm, but most would fight. I knew that truth, and Merewalh knew it too, yet in the end he was persuaded. And perhaps that persuasion did not come from my arguments, but rather from a passionate speech given by Father Oda.

  ‘I am an East Anglian,’ he had said, ‘and a Dane.’ There had been murmurs at those words, but Oda stood tall and stern. He had presence, an air of authority, and the murmurs had faded. ‘I was raised a pagan,’ he had continued, ‘but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ I have come to His throne, I have become one of His priests and one of His people. I am one of Christ’s people! I have no country. I fled East Anglia to live in Wessex, and there I served as a priest in the house of Æthelhelm.’ Again there were murmurs, but low and cut short when Oda lifted a hand. ‘And in the house of Æthelhelm,’ he had continued, making sure that his voice was heard throughout the whole square, ‘I looked upon the face of evil. I saw a lord without honour and a prince in whom the devil has found a home. Ælfweard,’ he spat the name, ‘is a boy of cruelty, a boy of deceit, a boy of sin! And so I fled again, this time to Mercia, and there I found a prince of God, a man of honour, I found King Æthelstan!’ And then the murmurs were approving, but again Oda had held up a hand to still the crowd.

  ‘The East Anglians will fight!’ he had continued. ‘But what is East Anglia? Is it a country? Their last Saxon king died a generation ago, they have been ruled by the Danes and now by West Saxons! They are a people without a country and they yearn for a country and in our scripture Saint Peter tells us that those who have no country belong to the country of God. And in that country God is our lord, God is our ruler, and Æthelstan of Mercia is His instrument. And the dispossessed of East Anglia will follow us! They will fight for our god because they want to dwell in God’s country and be God’s people! As are we!’

  I had just stared in amazement because men were standing and cheering. I needed to say nothing more because the gamble of leading a few men on a desperate mission to Lundene had been turned into a holy duty. If men had their wish they would have ridden for Lundene that very moment, expecting Æthelhelm’s East Anglian troops to change their allegiance as soon as we showed our banners.

  Even Merewalh had been persuaded, but his natural caution still ruled him. ‘We might succeed,’ he allowed, ‘if God is with us. But King Æthelstan must know.’

  ‘So tell him.’

  ‘I already sent a messenger.’

  ‘So Æthelstan can forbid it?’ I challenged him.

  ‘If he wishes, yes.’

  ‘So we must wait for his answer?’ I asked. ‘And wait while his advisers debate?’

  I had sounded scornful, yet a part of me almost wanted Æthelstan to forbid the madness, but again it was Father Oda who urged boldness. ‘I believe God wishes us to conquer,’ he had told Merewalh, ‘even if a pagan leads us.’

  ‘Even if I lead them?’ I asked.

  ‘Even so,’ he had spoken as though there was a stench in his nostrils.

  ‘You believe it is God’s will?’ Merewalh had asked the priest.

  ‘I know it is God’s will,’ Oda had said fervently, and so now men scraped shields and burned crosses onto the willow boards. And, watching them, I wondered if I was again making a terrible mistake. The enemy in Lundene was so numerous, and Merewalh had given me just one hundred and eighty men, and sense told me I was being an impetuous fool, yet whenever I felt a temptation to abandon the foolishness a small voice told me that success was possible.

  Æthelhelm was gathering his troops in Lundene because there he was safe behind sturdy Roman walls in a city large enough to quarter his growing army. And doubtless he hoped that Æthelstan would attack him there because there is no quicker way to destroy an enemy’s army than to kill it as it assaulted stone walls. Æthelstan could hurl his men at Lundene’s Roman battlements and they would die in their hundreds and the survivors would be hunted and slaughtered across the length and breadth of Mercia. Ælfweard would take the thrones of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia, and call them Englaland, before taking his new and even bigger army north to my country of Northumbria.

  Yet it was not just numbers. The men of East Anglia might follow Æthelhelm and acknowledge his nephew as their new king, but they did not love either man. Most East Anglians had obeyed Æthelhelm’s summons because to disobey it would be to invite punishment. They were a conquered nation and they harboured a sullen resentment for their conquerors. If I could pierce into the heart of Lundene and cut out the centre of Æthelhelm’s forces they would not want revenge on me. Yet half of that army in Lundene were West Saxons, and how would they respond? I did not know. I did know that many West Saxon lords resented the power and reach of Æthelhelm’s wealth, that they despised Ælfweard as a callow and vicious youth, yet would they welcome Æthelstan?

  So yes, there was a chance, if a despairingly small chance, that a sudden lunge into the heart of Lundene would undo the damage made by Edward’s will. Yet I knew that the real reason I wanted to go back was because my enemy was there. The enemy who had humiliated me, the enemy who was doubtless boasting of his triumph over Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the enemy who held my sword.

  I was going for revenge.

  Finan was not with me that afternoon as we scraped and branded the shields. I had sent him with two of our men and a pair of Brihtwulf’s warriors to wait on the road to Lundene. I had told them to hide themselves beside that road and, just two miles south of Werlameceaster, they had found a spinney of blackthorn and hazel that offered them cover. They waited and did not return until the sun was low in the west, casting long shadows from Werlameceaster’s ramparts.

  I was in the hall with Merewalh, Heorstan, and Brihtwulf. The two older men were nervous. Merewalh had accepted my plan after Father Oda’s fiery sermon, but now he was finding nothing but difficulties. The enemy was too strong, Lundene’s walls too high, and the chance of success too low. Heorstan agreed with him, but was less certain that we must fail. ‘The Lord Uhtred,’ he said, half bowing his head towards me, ‘has a reputation for winning. Perhaps we should trust him?’

  Merewalh looked at me mournfully. ‘But if you’re defeated before I can bring my troops into the city?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘I die,’ I said curtly.

  ‘And Brihtwulf and his men die with you,’ Merewalh said unhappily, ‘and they are my responsibility too.’

  ‘We surprise the enemy,’ I said. ‘We’re planning a night attack whe
n most are sleeping, just as they surprised us when they captured the city. We get inside and we open the gate to you and your men.’

  ‘If you assault the gate—’ Merewalh began.

  ‘We don’t assault the gate,’ I interrupted him. ‘They’ll think we’re East Anglian troops come to reinforce them.’

  ‘After dark?’ Merewalh was intent on finding problems and, if I was honest, there were many. ‘Men usually don’t travel after dark, lord. What if they refuse to open the gate?’

  ‘Then we wait till morning,’ I said. ‘In fact it might be even easier in daylight. We’ll have crosses on our shields. We just have to persuade them we’re East Anglians, not Mercians.’

  It was at that moment that Finan came into the hall with one of Brihtwulf’s warriors. Both men looked hot and tired, but Finan was grinning. The four of us fell silent as the two men paced towards us. ‘Six men,’ Finan said as they reached us.

  Merewalh looked puzzled, but I spoke before he could question Finan. ‘Did they see you?’ I asked.

  ‘They were riding too hard,’ Finan found a half-filled pot of ale on a table and drank, before offering it to his companion, ‘and they didn’t see a thing.’

  ‘They didn’t see us,’ Brihtwulf’s man confirmed. His name was Wihtgar, and he was a lean, dark-faced man with a long jaw and just one ear. The missing ear had been sliced off by a Danish axe in a skirmish and the puckered scar left by the axe was half hidden by long greasy black hair. Brihtwulf, whom I liked, had told me Wihtgar was his best and most vicious warrior and, looking at the man, I believed it.

  Merewalh was frowning. ‘Six men?’ he asked, confused by the brief conversation.

  ‘An hour or so ago,’ Finan explained, ‘we saw six men riding south, and all of them from this garrison.’

  Merewalh looked indignant. ‘But I ordered no patrols! Certainly not this late in the day.’

  ‘And all six were Heorstan’s men,’ Wihtgar added menacingly. We had sent two of Brihtwulf’s men with Finan because they would recognise any horsemen from Merewalh’s forces.

  ‘My men?’ Heorstan took a backwards step.

  ‘Your men,’ Wihtgar said, ‘your men,’ he repeated, then named the six. He spoke the names very slowly and very harshly, all the while staring into Heorstan’s bearded face.

  Heorstan looked at Merewalh, then gave a weak smile. ‘I sent them to exercise the horses, lord.’

  ‘So the six have returned?’ I asked.

  He opened his mouth, found he had nothing to say, then realised silence would condemn him. ‘I’m sure they’ve returned!’ he said hurriedly.

  I slid Wasp-Sting from her scabbard. ‘So send for them,’ I growled.

  He took another backwards step. ‘I’m sure they’ll return soon …’ he began, then fell silent.

  ‘I’m counting to three,’ I said, ‘and if you want to live you will answer my next question before I reach three. Where did they go? One,’ I paused, ‘two,’ I drew Wasp-Sting back, ready to lunge.

  ‘Toteham!’ Heorstan gasped. ‘They went to Toteham!’

  ‘On your orders?’ I asked, still pointing Wasp-Sting towards his belly. ‘To warn Æthelhelm’s troops?’ I pressed him.

  ‘I was going to tell you!’ Heorstan said desperately, now looking beseechingly at Merewalh. ‘Lord Uhtred’s plan is madness! It will never work! I didn’t know how to stop our men being slaughtered in Lundene so thought I would warn Æthelhelm and tell you afterwards. Then you’d have to abandon this madness!’

  ‘How much money has Æthelhelm been paying you?’ I asked.

  ‘No money!’ Heorstan gabbled. ‘No money! I was just trying to save our men!’ He looked at Merewalh. ‘I was going to tell you!’

  ‘And it was your scouts that drew the garrison out of Lundene,’ I accused him, ‘with false stories of an army approaching Werlameceaster.’

  ‘No!’ he protested. ‘No!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and touched Wasp-Sting’s sharp tip to his belly, ‘and if you want to live, you’ll tell us how much Æthelhelm paid you.’ I pressed the seax against him. ‘You do want to live? You’ll live if you tell us.’

  ‘He paid me!’ Heorstan said, now in terror. ‘He paid me gold!’

  ‘Three,’ I said, and drove Wasp-Sting into his belly. Heorstan half folded over the short blade and then, ignoring the agony in my shoulders, I used both hands to rip the seax upwards and he made a mewing sound that turned into a choking scream which faded as he collapsed slowly, his blood reddening the floor rushes. He stared up at me, his mouth opening and closing and his eyes full of tears. ‘You said I could live!’ he managed to gasp.

  ‘I did,’ I answered, ‘I just didn’t say how long you could live.’

  He lived a few painful minutes longer, finally bleeding to death. Merewalh was shocked, not by Heorstan’s death, he had seen enough killing not to be worried by the spreading blood and choking breaths, but by the revelation that Heorstan had betrayed him. ‘I thought him a friend! How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I answered, ‘but if our plan was to be betrayed we needed to know. So I sent Finan south.’

  ‘But it is betrayed!’ Merewalh protested. ‘Why didn’t you stop the men?’

  ‘Because I wanted the men to reach Toteham,’ I said, cleaning Wasp-Sting’s blade on a scrap of cloth, ‘of course.’

  ‘You wanted them …’ Merewalh began. ‘But why? In God’s name why?’

  ‘Because the plan I told you and Heorstan was false. That was what I wanted the enemy to hear.’

  ‘Then how do we do it?’ Merewalh asked.

  So I told him. And next day we rode to war.

  PART FOUR

  Serpent-Breath

  Eleven

  The dawn brought a mist that lingered above the meadows, drifted across the Roman walls, and was lost in the smoke from Werlameceaster’s hearths. Men walked horses in the town’s streets where a priest offered blessings outside a small wooden church. Scores of warriors knelt to receive a muttered prayer and a touch of his fingers on their foreheads. Women carried buckets of water from the town wells.

  No one had tried to leave the town during the short summer night. Merewalh had doubled the number of sentries who guarded Werlameceaster’s gates and paced its walls. Those men would stay in the town as a small garrison while the rest of us, one hundred and eighty men under my command and two hundred led by Merewalh, assaulted the enemy in Lundene.

  I had long been awake as the dawn silvered the mist. I had pulled on my mail coat, buckled the sword belt with its borrowed blade, and then had nothing better to do than sit and watch the men who must fight and the women they would leave behind.

  Benedetta joined me on the bench, which stood in a street leading from the wide square in front of the great hall. She said nothing. Alaina, who now followed Benedetta everywhere, sat on the street’s far side and watched us both anxiously. She had found a kitten that she petted, though she never took her eyes from us.

  ‘So you will go today,’ Benedetta finally said.

  ‘Today.’

  ‘And tomorrow? The day after?’

  I had no answer to her implied questions, so said nothing. A crow flew down from a rooftop, pecked at something in the square, and flew again. Was that an omen? I had tried to read every sign that morning, watched every bird in the mist, had tried to recall my dreams, but nothing made sense. I drew the borrowed sword and gazed at its blade, wondering if there was some message in the dull steel. Nothing. I lay the sword down. The gods were silent.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Benedetta asked.

  ‘Just a bit sore,’ I said, ‘that’s all.’ My body felt stiff, my shoulders were sore, the muscles of my arms ached, my skin’s lacerations stung, the inside of my cheek was swollen, my head throbbed, and my ribs were bruised if not broken.

  ‘You should not go,’ Benedetta said firmly and, when I did not reply, repeated herself. ‘You should not go, it is dangerous.’

  ‘War
is dangerous.’

  ‘Father Oda,’ she said, ‘was speaking to me last night. He said the thing you plan is madness.’

  ‘It is madness,’ I agreed, ‘but Father Oda wants us to attack. He was the one who persuaded Merewalh to attack.’

  ‘But he said it is the madness of God, so you will be blessed.’ She sounded dubious.

  The madness of God. Was that why my own gods had sent me no sign? Because this was the madness of the Christian god, not of my gods? Unlike the Christians, who insist that all other gods are false, even insisting that they do not exist, I have always acknowledged that the nailed god has power. So perhaps the Christian god would give us victory? Or perhaps my gods, angered that I harboured that hope, would punish me with death.

  ‘But God is not mad,’ Benedetta went on, ‘and God will not want you dead.’

  ‘Christians have been praying for my death for years.’

  ‘Then they are mad,’ she said with great certainty and, when I smiled, she became angry. ‘Why are you going? Tell me that! Why?’

  ‘To fetch my sword,’ I said, because I did not really know the answer to her question.

  ‘Then you are mad,’ she said with finality.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if I go,’ I said, speaking slowly, ‘but I should not be taking other men with me.’

  ‘Because they will die?’

  ‘Because I will lead them to their deaths, yes.’ I paused and instinctively touched my hammer, but of course it was gone. ‘Or perhaps to a victory?’ I added.

  She heard the doubt in my last few words. ‘In your heart,’ Benedetta pressed me, ‘which do you believe?’

  I could not admit the truth, which was that I was sorely tempted to tell Merewalh that we should abandon the assault. The easy course was to let Æthelhelm and Æthelstan battle out their quarrel while I went north, went home, went to Bebbanburg.

  Yet there was a chance, a slight chance, that what we planned could end the war almost before it had begun. Merewalh was to lead two hundred horsemen south to attack Æthelhelm’s small garrison at Toteham, then ride on towards Lundene. He would be close to the city by nightfall and would doubtless encounter forage parties who would flee to tell Æthelhelm’s men that an enemy force was approaching. Then, as dark fell, his men would light fires, as many as they could, on the heaths that lay some three miles north of the city. The glow of those fires would surely convince the city’s garrison that a besieging force had come and, in the dawn, they would be gazing northwards, readying to send patrols to discover the enemy’s strength and ensuring that the walls were fully manned.