Read The Burning Land Page 9


  AEthelflaed told me later that our swine head had gone straight through Harald’s line. It must have seemed that way as she watched from the hilltop, though to me it had seemed slow and hard work, but we did get through, we split Harald’s shield wall and now the real slaughter could begin.

  The Danish shield wall was shattered. Now, instead of neighbor helping neighbor, each man was on his own, and our men, West Saxon and Mercian alike, were still ranked shield to shield and they slashed and cut and stabbed at frantic enemies. The panic spread fast, like fire in dry stubble, and the Danes fled and my only regret was that our horses were still on the hilltop, guarded by boys, or else we could have pursued and cut them down from behind.

  Not all the Danes ran. Some horsemen who had been readying to circle the hill and attack us from behind charged our shield wall, but horses are reluctant to slam home into a well- made wall. The Danes rammed spears at shields and forced our line to bend, and more Danes came to help the horsemen. My swine head was no longer wedge- shaped, but my men were still staying together and I led them toward the sudden fury. A horse reared at me, hooves flailing, and I let my shield take the thumping blows. The stallion snapped its teeth at me and the rider hacked down with a sword that was stopped by the shield’s iron rim. My men were encircling the attackers, who realized their danger and pulled away, and it was then I saw why they had attacked in the first place. They had come to rescue Harald. Two of my men had captured Harald’s standard, the red- colored wolf- skull still fixed to its ax- banner staff, but Harald himself lay in blood among pea- plants. I shouted that we should capture him, but the horse was in my way and the rider was still slashing wildly with the sword. I rammed Wasp- Sting into the beast’s belly and saw Harald being dragged backward by his ankles. A huge Dane threw Harald over a saddle and other men led the horse away. I tried to reach him, but Wasp- Sting was embedded in the shuddering horse and the rider was still ineptly trying to kill me, so I let go of the short- sword’s hilt, grabbed his wrist, and hauled. I heard a shriek as the rider toppled from the saddle. “Kill him,” I snarled at the man beside me, then pulled Wasp- Sting free, but it was too late, the Danes had managed to rescue the wounded Harald.

  I sheathed Wasp- Sting and drew Serpent- Breath. There would be no more shield wall fighting this day, because now we would hunt the Danes through Fearnhamme’s alleys and beyond. Most of Harald’s men fled eastward, but not all. Our two attacks had pinched Harald’s horde, splitting it, and some had to run westward, deeper into Wessex. The first Saxon horsemen were crossing the river now and they pursued the fugitives. The Danes that survived that pursuit would be hunted by peasants. The men who went eastward, the ones who carried their fallen leader, were more numerous and they checked to rally a half- mile away, though as soon as West Saxon horsemen appeared those Danes went on retreating. And still there were Danes in Fearnhamme, men who had taken refuge in the houses where we hunted them like rats. They shouted for mercy, but we showed none because we were still under the thrall of AEthelflaed’s savage wish.

  I killed a man on a dungheap, hacking him down with Serpent- Breath and slicing his throat with her point. Finan chased two into a house and I hurried after him, but both were dead when I crashed through the door. Finan tossed me a golden arm ring, then we both went into the sunlit chaos. Horsemen cantered up the street, looking for victims. I heard shouting from behind a hovel and Finan and I ran there to see a huge Dane, bright with silver and gold rings and with a golden chain about his neck, fighting off three Mercians. He was a shipmaster, I guessed, a man who had brought his crews to Harald’s service in hope of finding West Saxon lands, but instead he was finding a West Saxon grave. He was good and fast, his sword and his battered shield holding off his attackers, and then he saw me and recognized the wealth in my war- gear and, at the same moment, the three Mercians stepped back as if to give me the privilege of killing the big man. “Hold your sword tight,” I told him.

  He nodded. He glanced at the hammer hanging at my neck. He was sweating, but not with fear. It was a warm day and we were all in leather and mail.

  “Wait for me in the feast hall,” I said.

  “My name is Othar.”

  “Uhtred.”

  “Othar the Storm- Rider,” he said.

  “I have heard that name,” I said politely, though I had not. Othar wanted me to know so that I could tell men that Othar the Storm- Rider had died well, and I had told him to keep a tight hold of his sword so that Othar the Storm- Rider would go to the feast hall in Valhalla where all warriors who die bravely go after death. These days, although I am old and feeble, I always wear a sword, so that when death comes I will go to that far hall where men like Othar wait for me. I look forward to meeting them.

  “The sword,” he said, lifting the weapon, “is called Brightfire.” He kissed the blade. “She has served me well.” He paused. “Uhtred of Bebbanburg?”

  “Yes.”

  “I met AElfric the Generous,” Othar said.

  It took me a heartbeat or two to realize he meant my uncle who had usurped my inheritance in Northumbria. “The generous?” I asked.

  “How else does he keep his lands?” Othar asked in return, “except by paying Danes to stay away?”

  “I hope to kill him too,” I said.

  “He has many warriors,” Othar said, and with that he thrust Brightfire fast, hoping to surprise me, hoping that he could go to Valhalla with my death as a boast, but I was as quick as him and Serpent- Breath sliced the lunge aside and I hammered my shield boss into him, pushing him back, and brought my sword round fast and realized he was not even trying to parry as Serpent- Breath slid across his throat.

  I took Brightfire from his dead hand. I had cut his throat to keep his mail from further damage. Mail is expensive, a trophy as valuable as the rings on Othar’s arms.

  Fearnhamme was filled with the dead and with the triumphant living. Almost the only Danes to survive were those who had taken refuge in the church, and they only lived because Alfred had crossed the river and insisted that the church was a refuge. He sat in the saddle, his face tight with pain, and the priests surrounded him as the Danes were led out of the church. AEthelred was there, his sword bloody. Aldhelm was grinning. We had won a famous victory, a great victory, and news of the slaughter would spread wherever the northmen took their boats, and shipmasters would know that going to Wessex was a short route to the grave. “Praise God,” Alfred greeted me.

  My mail was sheeted with blood. I knew I was grinning like Aldhelm. Father Beocca was almost crying with joy. AEthelflaed appeared then, still on horseback, and two of her Mercians were leading a prisoner. “She was trying to kill you, Lord Uhtred!” AEthelflaed said happily, and I realized the prisoner was the rider whose horse I had stabbed with Wasp- Sting.

  It was Skade.

  AEthelred was staring at his wife, no doubt wondering what she did in Fearnhamme dressed in mail, but he had no time to ask because Skade began howling. It was a terrible shrieking like the screams of a woman being eaten by the death- worm, and she tore at her hair and fell to the ground and started writhing. “I curse you all,” she wailed. She grabbed handfuls of earth and rubbed them into her black hair, crammed them into her mouth, and all the time she writhed and screeched. One of her guards was carrying the mail coat she had been wearing in battle, leaving her in a linen shift that she suddenly ripped open to expose her breasts. She smeared earth on her breasts and I had to smile as Edward, beside his father, stared wide- eyed at Skade’s nakedness. Alfred looked even more pained.

  “Silence her,” he ordered.

  One of the Mercian guards cracked a spear pole across her skull and Skade fell sideways onto the street. There was blood mixed with the soil in her raven hair now, and I thought she was unconscious, but then she spat out the soil and looked up at me. “Cursed,” she snarled.

  And one of the spinners took my thread. I like to think she hesitated, but maybe she did not. Maybe she smiled. But whether she hesitated or
not, she thrust her bone needle sideways into the darker weave.

  Wyrd bid ful araed.

  Saxon 5 - The Burning Land

  FIVE

  Sharp blades thrusting, spear- blades killing

  As AEthelred, Lord of Slaughter, slaughtered thousands,

  Swelling the river with blood, sword- fed river,

  And Aldhelm, noble warrior, followed his lord

  Into the battle, hard- fought, felling foemen

  And so the poem goes on for many, many, many more lines. I have the parchment in front of me, though I shall burn it in a moment. My name is not mentioned, of course, and that is why I shall burn it. Men die, women die, cattle die, but reputation lives on like the echo of a song. Yet why should men sing of AEthelred? He fought well enough that day, but Fearnhamme was not his battle, it was mine.

  I should pay my own poets to write down their songs, but they prefer lying in the sun and drinking my ale and, to be frank, poets bore me. I endure them for the sake of the guests in my hall who expect to hear the harp and the boasts. Curiosity drove me to buy this about- to- be- burned parchment from a monk who sells such things to noble halls. He had come from the lands that were Mercia, of course, and it is natural that Mercian poets should extol their country or else no one would ever hear of it, and so they write their lies, but even they cannot compete with the churchmen. The annals of our time are all written by monks and priests, and a man might have run away from a hundred battles and never once have killed a Dane, but so long as he gives money to the church he will be written down as a hero.

  The battle at Fearnhamme was won by two things. The first was that Steapa brought Alfred’s men to the field just when they were needed and, looking back, that could so easily have gone wrong. The AEtheling Edward, of course, was notionally in charge of that half of the army, and both he and AEthelred possessed far more authority than Steapa, indeed they both insisted he gave the command to leave AEscengum too soon and countermanded his order, but Alfred overruled them. Alfred was too sick to command the army himself, but, like me, he had learned to trust Steapa’s brute instinct. And so the horsemen arrived at the rear of Harald’s army when it was disorganized and when half still waited to cross the river.

  The second reason for success was the speed with which my swine head shattered Harald’s shield wall. Such attacks did not always work, but we had the advantage of the slope, and the Danes, I think, were already dispirited by the slaughter beyond the ford. And so we won.

  The Lord God granted victory, blessings to AEthelred,

  Who, beside the river, broke the hedge of shields.

  And Edward was there, noble Edward, Alfred’s son.

  Who, shielded by angels, watched as AEthelred

  Cut down the northmen’s leader…

  Burning is too good for it. Maybe I shall tear it to squares and leave it in the latrine.

  We were too tired to organize a proper pursuit, and our men were dazed by the speed of their triumph. They had also found ale, mead, and Frankish wine in the Danes’ saddlebags and many became drunk as they wandered the butcher’s shop they had made. Some men began heaving Danish corpses into the river, but there were so many that the bodies jammed against the Roman bridge piers to make a dam that flooded the ford’s banks. Mail coats were being heaped and captured weapons piled. The few prisoners were under guard in a barn, their sobbing women and children gathered outside, while Skade had been placed in an empty granary where two of my men now guarded her. Alfred, naturally, went to the church to give thanks to his god, and all the priests and monks went with him. Bishop Asser paused before going to his prayers. He stared at the dead and at the plunder, then turned his cold eyes on me. He just gazed at me, as if I were one of those two- headed calves that are shown at fairs, then he looked puzzled and gestured that Edward should go with him to the church.

  Edward hesitated. He was a shy young man, but it was plain he felt he should say something to me and had no idea what words to use. I spoke instead. “I congratulate you, lord,” I said.

  He frowned and for a moment looked as puzzled as Asser, then he twitched and straightened. “I’m not a fool, Lord Uhtred.”

  “I never thought so,” I said.

  “You must teach me,” he said.

  “Teach you?”

  He waved at the carnage and, for a heartbeat, looked horrified. “How you do this,” he blurted out.

  “You think like your enemy, lord,” I said, “and then you think harder.” I would have said more, but just then I saw Cerdic in an alley between two cottages. I half turned, then was distracted by Bishop Asser sternly calling Edward away, and when I looked back there was no Cerdic. Nor could there have been, I told myself. I had left Cerdic in Lundene to guard Gisela, and I decided it was just one of the tricks that tired thoughts can play.

  “Here, lord.” Sihtric, who had been my servant, but was now one of my household warriors, dumped a heavy coat of mail at my feet. “It’s got gold links, lord,” he said excitedly.

  “You keep it,” I said.

  “Lord?” He stared up at me with astonishment.

  “Your wife has expensive tastes, doesn’t she?” I asked. Sihtric had married a whore, Ealhswith, much against my advice and without my permission, but I had forgiven him and then been surprised that the marriage was happy. They had two children now, both sturdy little boys. “Take it away,” I said.

  “Thank you, lord.” Sihtric scooped up the mail coat.

  Time slows.

  It is strange how I have forgotten some things. I cannot truly re member the moment when I led the swine head into Harald’s line. Was I looking into his face? Do I truly remember the horse’s fresh blood flicking from his beard as his head turned? Or was I looking at the man to his left whose shield half protected Harald? I forget so much, but not that moment as Sihtric picked up the mail coat. I saw a man leading a dozen captured horses across the flooded ford. Two other men were tugging bodies free of the corpse- dam at the ruined bridge. One of the men had red curly hair and the other was doubled over in laughter at some jest. Three other men were tossing corpses into the river, adding to the blockage of bodies faster than the pair could relieve it. A thin dog was scratching itself on the street where Osferth, Alfred’s bastard, was talking to the Lady AEthelflaed, and I was surprised that she was not in the church with her father, brother, and husband, and surprised that she and her half- brother appeared to have struck up a friendly relationship so soon. I remember Oswi, my new servant lad, leading Smoka into the street and pausing to talk to a woman, and I realized that Fearnhamme’s townsfolk were returning already. I supposed they must have hidden in the nearby woods as soon as they saw armed men across the river. Another woman, wearing a dull yellow cloak, was using a paring knife to cut a ring- circled finger from a dead Dane’s hand. I remember a raven, circling blue- black in the blood- smelling sky, and I felt a sharp elation as I stared at the bird. Was that one of Odin’s two ravens? Would the gods themselves hear of this carnage? I laughed aloud, the sound incongruous because in my memory there was just silence at that moment.

  Till AEthelflaed spoke. “Lord?” She had come close and was staring at me. “Uhtred?” she said gently. Finan was a couple of paces behind her, and with him was Cerdic, and that was when I knew. I knew, but I said nothing, and AEthelflaed walked to me and laid a hand on my arm. “Uhtred?” she said again. I think I just stared into her face. Her blue eyes were bright with tears. “Childbirth,” she said gently.

  “No,” I said, quite quietly, “no.”

  “Yes,” she said simply. Finan was looking at me, pain on his face.

  “No,” I said louder.

  “Mother and child,” AEthelflaed said very softly.

  I closed my eyes. My world went dark, had gone dark, for my Gisela was dead.

  Wyn eal gedreas. That is from another poem I sometimes hear chanted in my hall. It is a sad poem, and thus a true poem. Wyrd bid ful araed, it says. Fate is inexorable. And wyn eal gedreas. All the
joy has died.

  All my joy had died and I had gone into the dark. Finan said I howled like a wolf, and perhaps I did, though I do not remember that. Grief must be hidden. The man who first chanted that fate is inexorable went on to say that we must bind our inmost thoughts in chains. A saddened mind does no good, he said, and its thoughts must be hidden, and maybe I did howl, but then I shook off AEthelflaed’s hand and snarled at the men heaving corpses into the river, ordering that two of them should help the men trying to clear the bodies from between the ruined bridge piers. “Make sure all our horses are down from the hilltop,” I told Finan.

  I did not think of Skade at that moment, or else I might have let Serpent- Breath take her rotten soul. It was her curse, I realized later, that killed Gisela, because she had died on the same morning that Harald had forced me to free Skade. Cerdic had ridden to tell me, his heart heavy as he took his horse through Dane- infested country to AEscengum, only to find us gone.

  Alfred, when he heard, came to me, took my arm and walked down Fearnhamme’s street. He was limping and men stepped aside to give us room. He gripped my elbow, and seemed about to speak a dozen times, yet the words always died on his lips. Finally he checked me and looked into my eyes. “I have no answer why God inflicts such grief,” he said, and I said nothing. “Your wife was a jewel,” Alfred went on. He frowned, and his next words were as generous as they were difficult for him to say. “I pray your gods give you comfort, Lord Uhtred.” He led me to the Roman house which had been sequestered as the royal hall, and there AEthelred looked uncomfortable, while Father Beocca, dear man, embarrassed me by clinging to my sword hand and praying aloud that his god should treat me with mercy. He was crying. Gisela might have been a pagan, but Beocca had loved her. Bishop Asser, who hated me, nevertheless spoke gentle words, while Brother Godwin, the blind monk who eavesdropped on God, made a plangent moaning sound until Asser led him away. Finan, later that day, brought me a jar of mead and sang his sad Irish songs until I was too drunk to care. He alone saw me weep that day, and he told no one.