The Pagan Lord

Thirteen

Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld are the Norns, the three women who spin our threads at the foot of Yggdrasil, the massive ash tree that supports our world. In my mind I see them in a cave: not a cave like the one where Erce had straddled me, but something much larger and almost limitless, a terrifying emptiness through which the world tree thrusts its giant bole. And there, where the roots of Yggdrasil writhe and twist into the bedrock of creation, the three women weave the tapestry of all our lives.

And that day they held two threads away from the loom. I have always imagined my thread to be yellow like the sun. I do not know why, but so I imagine. Cnut’s had to be white like his hair, like the ivory hilt of Ice-Spite, like the cloak he shrugged from his shoulders as he stepped towards me.

So Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld would decide our fate. They are not kindly women, indeed they are monstrous and malevolent hags, and Skuld’s shears are sharp. When those blades cut they cause tears that feed the well of Urðr that lies beside the world tree, and the well gives the water that keeps Yggdrasil alive and if Yggdrasil dies then the world dies, and so the well must be kept filled and for that there must be tears. We cry so that the world can live.

The yellow and the white thread. And the shears hovering.

Cnut came slowly. We would meet close to the ford’s eastern edge, where the water was shallow, scarce ankle-deep. He held Ice-Spite low in his right hand, but men said he could use either hand with equal skill. He carried no shield because he needed none. He was quick, none faster, and he could parry with Ice-Spite.

I carried Serpent-Breath. She looked brutal compared to Ice-Spite. She was twice as heavy, a hand’s breadth longer, and a man might be forgiven for thinking that her long blade would shatter Cnut’s sword, but rumour said his blade had been forged in the ice caverns of the gods in a fire that burned colder than ice, and that it was the unbreakable sword, and swifter than a serpent’s tongue. He held it low.

Ten paces divided us. He stopped and waited. He had a slight smile.

I took another pace. The water flowed around my boots. Get close to him, I thought, so he has no room to use that vicious blade. He would be expecting that. Maybe I should stand back, let him come to me.

‘Lord!’ a voice called behind me.

Cnut raised Ice-Spite, though he still held her lightly. She had a silvery gleam on the blade that shivered as she moved. He was watching my eyes. A man who uses a sword with lethal skill always watches his opponent’s eyes.

‘Lord!’ It was Finan calling.

‘Father!’ Uhtred shouted urgently.

Cnut looked past me and his face suddenly changed. He had been looking amused, but now there was sudden alarm. I stepped back and turned.

And saw horsemen coming from the west, hundreds of horsemen climbing the ridge where the hovels burned to send their dark signal into the sky. How many? I could not tell, but maybe two, perhaps three hundred? I looked back to Cnut and his face betrayed that the newcomers were not his men. He had sent troops across the ditch to the north of us, but the newly arrived horsemen would block their advance on our flank. If they were Saxons.

I looked back again to see the newly arrived men dismounting and boys leading their horses back down the ridge, while on the low summit where the cottages burned a new shield wall was forming. ‘Who are they?’ I called to Finan.

‘God knows,’ he said.

And the nailed god did know, because a banner was suddenly unfurled on the skyline, a huge banner, and the new banner showed a Christian cross.

We were not alone.

I stepped back, almost tripping on a body. ‘Coward!’ Cnut shouted at me.

‘You told me what would happen if I died,’ I called to him, ‘but what happens if you die?’

‘If I die?’ The question seemed to puzzle him as though such an outcome was an impossibility.

‘Does your army surrender to me?’ I asked.

‘They’ll kill you,’ he snarled.

I jerked my head towards the ridge where the newcomers stood beneath the banner of the cross. ‘You’re going to find that a little more difficult now.’

‘Just more Saxons to kill,’ Cnut said. ‘More filth to clean from the land.’

‘So if you and I fight,’ I said, ‘and you win, then you go south to face Edward?’

‘Maybe.’

‘And if you lose,’ I said, ‘your army still goes south?’

‘I won’t lose,’ he snarled.

‘But you’re not offering a fair fight,’ I said. ‘If you lose then your army must surrender to me.’

He laughed at that. ‘You’re a fool, Uhtred of Bebbanburg.’

‘If my death makes no difference,’ I said, ‘why should I fight?’

‘Because it’s fate,’ Cnut said, ‘you and I.’

‘If you die,’ I insisted, ‘then your army must take my orders. Tell them that.’

‘I shall tell them to piss on your corpse,’ he said.

But first he had to kill me and I was stronger now. The newcomers under the big banner of the cross were allies, not enemies. It must have been their scouts we had seen in the west, and now they were here and, though it was no army, there had to be two or three hundred men on the ridge’s crest, enough to halt the Danes who had crossed the river to my north. ‘If we fight,’ I told Cnut, ‘then we fight fair. If you win, my men live; if I win, your men take my orders.’ He said nothing, and I turned from him and rejoined my men. I could see that the Danes to the north had stopped their advance, worried by the newcomers, while Cnut’s larger force across the ford was still not arrayed in a shield wall. They had crowded along the ford’s edge to watch us fight, and Cnut now bellowed at them to form ranks. He wanted to attack fast, but it would take a few moments for his men to make their ranks and lock their shields.

So while they made their new shield wall I pushed back through my ranks. Young Æthelstan was riding fast and careless down from the ridge. ‘Lord! Lord!’ he shouted. Æthelflaed was following him, but I ignored them both because two horsemen were also coming from the ridge. One was a big, bearded man in mail and helmet, while the other was a priest. The priest wore no armour, just a long black robe, and he smiled as he reached me. ‘I thought you needed help,’ he said.

‘He always needs help,’ the larger man said, ‘Lord Uhtred stumbles into a pit of shit and we pull him out.’ He grinned at me. ‘Greetings, my friend.’

He was Father Pyrlig and he was my friend. He had been a great warrior before he became a priest. He was a Welshman, proud of his tribe. His beard had turned grey and the hair under his helmet was grey, but his face was lively as ever. ‘Would you believe,’ I asked him, ‘that I’m glad to see you?’

‘I believe you! Because this is as filthy a pit of shit as any I’ve seen,’ Pyrlig said. ‘I’ve got two hundred and thirty-eight men. How many bastards does he have?’

‘Four thousand?’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ Pyrlig said. ‘It’s lucky we’re Welshmen. Four thousand Danes? No trouble for a few Welshmen.’

‘You’re all Welsh?’ I asked.

‘We asked for help,’ the other priest said, ‘to ensure that the light of the gospel isn’t extinguished from Britain, so that the pagans are defeated utterly, and so the love of Christ will fill this land.’

‘What he means,’ Pyrlig explained, ‘is that he knew you were in the shit so he came to me and asked for help, and I had nothing better to do.’

‘We asked good Christian men to offer their services,’ the younger priest explained earnestly, ‘and these men came.’

‘“And then I heard the voice of God”,’ Pyrlig said in a sonorous tone, and I realised he was quoting from the Christians’ holy book, ‘“and He said, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for me?’ and I said, ‘Here I am, Lord, send me.’”’ He paused, then smiled at me. ‘I always was an idiot, Uhtred.’

‘And King Edward is coming,’ the younger priest said. ‘We just have to hold them here for a short while.’

‘You know that?’ I asked, still dazed.

‘I know it …’ he paused, ‘Father.’

The younger priest was Father Judas, my son. The son I had insulted, beaten and rejected. I turned away from him so that he would not see the tears in my eyes.

‘The armies met north of Lundene,’ Father Judas went on, ‘but that was over a week ago. Lord Æthelred joined his men to King Edward’s and they’re both coming north.’

‘Æthelred left East Anglia?’ I asked. I was finding it difficult to comprehend the news.

‘As soon as you drew Cnut away from the frontier. He went south towards Lundene.’

‘Lundene,’ I said vaguely.

‘He and Edward met somewhere just to the north of Lundene, I think.’

I sniffed. Still more Danes were arriving across the river where Cnut’s shield wall was widening. Now it would overlap us at either end. That meant we must lose. I turned back to look at the man who had been my son. ‘You blamed me for killing Abbot Wihtred,’ I said.

‘He was a holy man,’ he said reprovingly.

‘He was a traitor! Cnut sent him. He was doing their bidding.’ I pointed Serpent-Breath at the Danes. ‘It was all Cnut’s idea!’ Father Judas just stared at me. I could see he was trying to decide whether or not I was lying. ‘Ask Finan,’ I said, ‘or Rolla. They were both there when Cnut’s children talked about Uncle Wihtred. I did you damned Christians a service, but I get little thanks from you.’

‘But why would Cnut send Æthelred chasing after the blessed Oswald’s bones?’ Pyrlig asked. ‘He knew that finding them would encourage the Saxons, so why do it?’

‘Because he’d already pounded the bones to dust or thrown them into the sea. He knew there were no bones.’

‘But there were,’ Father Judas said triumphantly. ‘They found them, God be praised.’

‘They found a skeleton I chopped up for them, you young fool. Ask Osferth if you live long enough to see him again. I even chopped off the wrong arm. And your precious Wihtred was sent by Cnut! So what do you have to say to that?’

He looked from me to the enemy. ‘I’d say, Father, that you’d best retreat to the higher ground.’

‘You insolent bastard,’ I said. But he was right. The Danes were almost ready to advance, and their wall was far wider than mine, which meant we would be surrounded and we would die, and so our only hope now was to join the Welsh on the ridge’s low crest and hope that together we could hold the enemy till help came. ‘Finan,’ I shouted, ‘up the hill, fast! Now!’

I thought Cnut might attack when he saw us retreat, but he was too intent on gathering the men who still arrived and adding them to his shield wall, which was now over eight ranks deep. He could have hurried over the river and assaulted us while we went back to the ridge’s top, but he must have thought we would reach that low summit long before he could catch us and he preferred to attack in his own time and with overwhelming force.

And so we went to the ridge, our last refuge. It was hardly a hill to frighten an enemy. The slope was gentle and easy to climb, but there were those burning houses and they made formidable obstacles. There were seven of them and all still burned. The roofs had collapsed so that each was now a smoking pit of fire, and our shield wall filled the gaps between the fierce blazes. The Welsh faced north towards the men who had crossed the river, and my men faced east and south towards Cnut’s larger force, and there we touched our shields together and watched as Cnut’s horde crossed the ford.

The Welsh were singing a psalm in praise of the nailed god. Their voices were strong, deep and confident. We had made a circle on the ridge’s top, a circle of shields and weapons and fire. Æthelflaed was in the circle’s centre where our banners flew, and where, I thought, the last survivors must eventually be crushed and cut down. Father Judas and two other priests were moving along the ranks giving men blessings. One by one the Christians knelt and the priests would touch the crest of their helmet. ‘Believe in the resurrection of the dead,’ Father Judas said to Sihtric in my earshot, ‘and in the life everlasting, and may the peace of God shine upon you ever more.’

‘Were you telling the truth about Wihtred?’ Pyrlig asked me. He was standing behind me in our second rank. Today, it seemed, he would be a warrior again. He carried a heavy shield decorated with a dragon writhing about a cross, and in his other hand a short, stout spear.

‘That he was doing Cnut’s bidding? Yes.’

He chuckled. ‘A clever bastard, our Cnut. How are you?’

‘Angry.’

‘Ah, nothing changes.’ He smiled. ‘Who are you angry with?’

‘Everyone.’

‘It’s good to be angry before battle.’

I gazed southwards, looking for King Edward’s army. It was strange how peaceful that land looked, just low hills and lush pastures, fields of stubble and stands of trees, and a swan flying westwards and the falcon high above just circling on its still, outstretched wings. It was all so beautiful, and so empty. No warriors.

‘My lady!’ I threaded our thin wall to face Æthelflaed. Cnut’s son was beside her, guarded by a tall warrior who had a drawn seax.

‘Lord Uhtred?’ she said.

‘Did you choose a man to do what I suggested?’

She hesitated, then nodded. ‘But God will give us victory.’

I looked at the tall man with the drawn sword and he just lifted the short blade to show he was ready. ‘Is it sharp?’ I asked him.

‘It will cut deep and swift, lord,’ he said.

‘I love you,’ I said to Æthelflaed, not caring who heard me. I gazed at her for a moment, my woman of gold with her stern jaw and blue eyes, and then I turned back fast because a great shout deafened the sky.

Cnut was coming.

He came as I had expected. He came slowly. His massive shield wall was so big that most of his men would never have to fight, they just trailed behind the long front ranks that tramped towards the ridge. The pagan banners were held high. The Danes were beating blades against shields in a rhythm set by the big war drums behind their massive wall. They were chanting too, though I could not hear what words they said. The Welsh were still singing.

I pushed through to the front rank, taking my place between Finan and Uhtred, my son. Pyrlig was again behind me, his big shield raised to protect me from the spears and axes that would be hurled before the shield walls clashed.

Though the insults came first. The Danes were close enough now that we could see their helmet-framed faces, see the grimaces, the snarling. ‘You’re cowards,’ they taunted us. ‘Your women will be our whores!’

Cnut faced me. He was flanked by a pair of tall warriors in fine war gear, men heavy with arm rings, men whose reputations came from battle-slaughter. I sheathed Serpent-Breath and drew Wasp-Sting, the seax. She was much shorter than Serpent-Breath, but in the close embrace of a shield wall a long weapon is a hindrance, while a short blade can be lethal. I kissed the sword’s hilt, then touched the hilt to the hammer about my neck. Cnut still carried Ice-Spite, though he had taken a shield for this assault. The shield was covered in cowhide on which his symbol of the axe-shattered cross was daubed in black paint. The two men who flanked him carried wide-bladed, long-hafted war axes.

‘What they’ll do,’ I said, ‘is try to hook my shield down with the axes so that Cnut can finish me. When they do it, you two can kill the axemen.’

Uhtred said nothing. He was shaking. He had never fought in the shield wall and perhaps would never fight in one again, but he was trying to look calm. His face was grim. I knew what he felt. I knew the fear. Finan was muttering in Irish, I assume it was a prayer. He carried a short-sword like mine.

The Danes were still shouting. We were women, we were boys, we were shit, we were cowards, we were dead men. They were scarce twenty paces away and they stopped there. They were summoning the courage for the rush uphill, for the killing. Two younger men stepped forward and called challenges to us, but Cnut snarled at them to get back in their ranks. He did not want any distractions. He wanted to kill us all. There were horsemen behind the deep ranks. If we broke and some of us fled westwards, which was the only direction where no Danes threatened, those horsemen would pursue and cut us down. Cnut did not just want to kill us, he wanted to annihilate us; he wanted his poets to sing of a battle where not one enemy survived, where Saxon blood made the ground sodden. His men shouted their insults, and we watched their faces, watched the blades, saw the shields lock and saw the spears fly. Spears and axes, hurled from the enemy’s rearward ranks, and we crouched, shields locked, as the missiles struck. A spear thumped hard into my shield, but did not lodge there. Our own spears flew. They had small hope of piercing the shield wall, but a man whose shield is cumbered with a heavy spear or axe is at a disadvantage. Another blade crashed against my shield and then Cnut bellowed his order, ‘Now!’

‘God is with us!’ Father Judas shouted.

‘Brace yourselves!’ Finan called.

And they came. A scream of war cries, faces disfigured by hate, shields raised, weapons ready, and perhaps we shouted too, and perhaps our faces were ugly with hate, and for certain our shields were locked and weapons ready, and they hit, and I went down on one knee as Cnut’s shield slammed forward and crashed into mine. He thrust it low, hoping to slant the top away from my body so that his axemen could hook it with their blades and drag it down further, but I had anticipated him and the shields met plumb, and I was the heavier man so that Cnut recoiled, and Pyrlig’s shield was above me as the twin axes slashed down, and I was moving.

Moving forward. Moving forward and rising. The axes struck Pyrlig’s shield, which hit my helmet hard, but I hardly felt the blow because I was moving fast, snarling, and now it was my shield that was lower than Cnut’s and I was driving his upwards. The axemen were trying to drag their weapons out of Pyrlig’s shield, and Finan and Uhtred were screaming as they thrust at the pair, but all I saw was the inside of my shield as I thrust it up, still up, and Ice-Spite was too long to be used in this close embrace, but Wasp-Sting was short and she was stout and she was sharp, and I rammed my shield arm to the left, saw the bright mail beyond, and stabbed.

All my strength went into that stab. Years of sword-craft, of exercising, of training went into that lunge. I stood as I thrust. My shield had swept Cnut’s aside, he was open, Ice-Spite was tangled in an axe-haft and my teeth were clenched and my hand death-tight around Wasp-Sting’s hilt.

And she struck.

The blow jarred up my arm. Wasp-Sting’s short blade struck Cnut hard, and I felt him recoil from the savage thrust, and still I pushed her, trying to gouge the guts from his belly, but then the man to Cnut’s left chopped his shield down and the rim struck my forearm with such force that I was driven back down to my knees and Wasp-Sting was pulled back by the motion. The axe was raised, but stayed aloft as the strength went from the man’s shield arm. A spear was in his chest, thrust by a man behind me, and I stabbed Wasp-Sting again, this time taking down the axeman, whose blood was already soaking his chest’s mail. He went down. Uhtred had his seax in the dying man’s face and pulled it free as I dragged my shield to cover myself and looked over the rim for Cnut.

And could not see him. He was gone. Had I killed him? That blow would have felled an ox, but I had not felt her pierce mail or break through skin and muscle. I had felt her strike with vicious force, a sword-thrust as heavy as Odin’s thunder, and I knew I must have hurt him if not killed him, yet Cnut was nowhere to be seen. I could only see a man with a yellow beard and a silver neck ring coming to fill the place where Cnut had been standing and he was shouting at me as his shield crashed onto mine and we were shoving at each other. I probed with Wasp-Sting, found no gap. Pyrlig was bellowing about God, but keeping his shield high. A spear scraped against my left ankle, which meant a man was crouching low in the Danish second rank and I thrust my shield hard forward and the yellow-bearded man went backwards, tripped on the crouching spearman, and there was a gap and Finan was into the space faster than a mead-quickened weasel. His sword drank blood. The point was in the spearman’s neck, not deep, but blood was rushing and bright, spurting and bright, and Finan twisted the blade as I slid Wasp-Sting into the man to my right, another hard blow, and I could feel pain in my forearm where the shield rim had struck it, but Wasp-Sting had found flesh and I fed her, I drove her between ribs, and my son brought his sword up from below so that the blade buried itself in the man’s guts and he was lifted up as Uhtred ripped the sword still higher.

Guts and blood, shining coils, smelling of shit, spilling from a dying man’s belly to be trampled into the mud, and men screaming and shields splintering, and we had only been fighting for a few heartbeats. I did not know what was happening on that low, smoke-wreathed ridge-top. I did not know which of my men were dying, or whether the enemy had broken our shield wall, because when the shield walls meet you only see what is there in front of you or just beside you. A blow struck my left shoulder and did no harm; I did not see who dealt it, I had stepped back and my shield was high and touching Finan’s to my left and my son’s to the right, and all I knew was that our part of the wall had held, that we had driven Cnut away, that the Danes were now impeded by their own dead, who made a low rampart in front of us. That made their job harder and made them easier to kill, yet still they came.

The Welshmen had stopped singing, which told me they were fighting, and I was dully aware of the sounds of battle behind me, the thunder of shields meeting shields, the clash of blades, but I dared not turn because an axeman was swinging his long-shafted axe to bring it down on my head and I stepped back, lifted the shield to let the axe strike, and Uhtred stepped over the dead man in front of me and took the axeman under the chin. One stab, quick and upwards, the blade going through the chin, the mouth, the tongue, up behind the nose and then he stepped away from the threat of a Danish sword-lunge, and the axeman was shaking like an aspen leaf, the axe forgotten in his suddenly weak hand as blood spilled from his mouth to run in wriggling rivulets down his beard, which was hung with dull iron rings.

A terrible scream sounded from my left and suddenly, above the stench of blood, ale and shit, I smelt roasting flesh. A man had been thrown into a burning cottage. ‘We’re holding them!’ I shouted. ‘We’re holding them! Let the bastards come to us!’ I did not want my men breaking ranks to pursue a wounded enemy. ‘Hold hard!’

We had killed the enemy’s front rank and hurt their second rank and now the Danes in front of me pulled back some two or three paces. To attack us now they had to clamber over their own dead and dying and they hesitated. ‘Come to us!’ I taunted them. ‘Come and die!’ And where was Cnut? I could not see him. Had I wounded him? Had he been carried down the slope to die where the big drums still thudded their battle-rhythm?

But if Cnut was missing, Sigurd Thorrson was there. Sigurd, who was Cnut’s friend and whose son I had killed, bellowed at the Danes to give him room. ‘I’ll gut you!’ he shouted at me. His eyes were red-rimmed and his mail thick and heavy and his sword a brutal long blade, and his neck was hung with gold and his arms were bright with metal as he charged up the slope, seeking me, but it was my son who stepped forward.

‘Uhtred,’ I shouted, but Uhtred ignored me, taking Sigurd’s sword blow on his shield and driving the seax forward with a young man’s speed and strength. The seax glanced off the iron rim of Sigurd’s shield and the big Dane tried to swing his sword at my son’s waist, but the blow had no power because Sigurd was off balance. Then the two stepped apart, pausing to appraise each other.

‘I’ll kill your pup,’ Sigurd snarled at me, ‘then I’ll kill you.’ He gestured for his men to step back a pace, to give him space to fight, then he pointed his heavy sword at my son. ‘Come on, little boy, come and die.’

Uhtred laughed. ‘You’re fat as a bishop,’ he told Sigurd. ‘You’re like a Yule-fattened pig. You’re a bloated piece of shit.’

‘Pup,’ Sigurd said and stepped forward, shield high, sword swinging from his right, and I remember thinking that my son was at a huge disadvantage because he was fighting with a seax and I thought to throw him Serpent-Breath, and then he went down.

He went down onto one knee, the shield held like a roof above him, and Sigurd’s long-sword glanced off the shield, going nowhere, and my son was rising, the seax held firm, and he did all this so fast, so smoothly that he made it look easy as his brief blade punctured Sigurd’s mail and buried itself in the heavy gut and Uhtred was still coming from his knees, all his body’s strength behind that short blade that was deep inside his enemy’s belly. ‘That’s for my father!’ Uhtred shouted as he rose.

‘Good boy,’ Finan muttered.

‘And for God the Father,’ Uhtred said, ripping the seax upward, ‘and God the Son,’ he said with another jerk, pulling the blade higher, ‘and God the Holy bloody Ghost,’ and with that he stood fully upright and slit Sigurd’s mail and flesh from the groin to the chest and he left the blade there, the hilt stuck in a gutted trunk and he used his free hand to rip Sigurd’s sword away. He hammered the captured weapon on Sigurd’s helmet, and the big man went down into the mess of entrails that had spilled around his boots, and then a group of Danes rushed to take revenge and I stepped forward to haul Uhtred back into the wall and he raised his shield to touch mine. He was laughing.

‘You idiot,’ I said.

He was still laughing as the shields hit, but the Danes were stumbling on dead men and slipping on guts, and we added to that carnage. Wasp-Sting went through mail and ribs again, sucking the life of a man who gasped the stench of sour ale into my face, then his bowels loosened and all I could smell were his turds, and I smashed the shield into the face of another man and flicked Wasp-Sting at his belly, but only broke a link of mail before he staggered backwards.

‘God help us,’ Pyrlig said in wonderment, ‘but we’re holding.’

‘God is with you!’ Father Judas shouted. ‘The heathen are dying!’

‘Not this heathen,’ I snarled, and then I screamed at the Danes to come and die, I taunted them, I begged them to fight me.

I have tried to explain this to women, though few have understood. Gisela did, as did Æthelflaed, but most have looked at me as though I were something disgusting when I talked of the joy of battle. It is disgusting. It is wasteful. It is terrifying. It stinks. It makes misery. At battle’s end there are dead friends and wounded men, and pain, and tears, and awful agony, and yet it is a joy. The Christians talk of a soul, though I have never seen, smelt, tasted or felt such a thing, but perhaps the soul is a man’s spirit and in battle that spirit soars like a falcon in the wind. Battle takes a man to the edge of disaster, to a glimpse of the chaos that will end the world, and he must live in that chaos and on that edge and it is a joy. We weep and we exult. Sometimes, when the nights draw in and the cold days are short, we bring entertainers to the hall. They sing, they do tricks, they dance, and some juggle. I have seen a man tossing five sharp swords in a swirling, dazzling display, and you think he must be cut by one of the heavy blades as it falls, yet somehow he manages to snatch it from the air and the blade whirls upwards again. That is the edge of disaster. Do it right and you feel like a god, but get it wrong and it will be your guts being trampled underfoot.

We did it right. We had retreated to the ridge where we had made a circle of shields and that meant we could not be outflanked, and so the enemy’s vast advantage of numbers counted for nothing. It would have counted in the end, of course. Even if we fought like fiends from the pit they would have worn us down and we would have died one by one, but Cnut’s men were not given the time to destroy us. They fought, they struggled, they began to outweigh us, thrusting men forward by sheer force of numbers and I thought we must die, except suddenly the pressure of dying men holding shields that were being pushed by the men behind went away.

It was desperate for a while. The Danes crossed the line of dead and slammed shields against ours, and the men in the ranks behind heaved on the men in front, while men at the very back of the Danish ranks hurled more spears and axes. I killed the man facing me, I drove Wasp-Sting into his chest and felt the warm blood pour onto my gloved hand, and I saw the light go from his eyes and his head drop, but he did not fall. He was held upright by my blade and by the shield of the man behind him, and those men behind pushed and pushed so that the dead man was edging me backwards and there was nothing I could do except try to push him down with my shield, but a long-hafted axe was threatening me, and Pyrlig was trying to deflect it, and that meant he could not push against me and so we went back, step by step, and I knew the Danes must push us into a tight huddle that they could slaughter.

Then I managed to step back fast and so release the pressure and the dead man fell forward as I stepped onto his back and slid Wasp-Sting at the axeman. Something struck my helmet a ringing blow so that for a moment I saw nothing, just darkness riven with lightning, but I held onto the seax and stabbed it again and again, and then the pushing started again. A crash of shield on shield. An axe hammered onto my shield, driving it down and a spear came over the rim to pierce my left shoulder, striking bone, and I hauled the shield up, feeling a stabbing pain rip down my arm, and Wasp-Sting found flesh and I twisted her. My son Uhtred had dropped his shield that was little more than splinters of wood held together by cowhide, and he was using Sigurd’s sword two-handed to thrust at the Danes. Finan was half crouched, darting his sword between shields, and the men behind us were trying to thrust spears into bearded faces, and no one was shouting any more. They grunted, they cursed, they moaned, they cursed again.

We were being pushed back. In a moment, I knew, we would be pushed past the fires of the burning houses and the Danes would see the gap and there would be a rush of men to fill it, to hack at our ranks from inside. This is the way I would die, I thought, and I gripped Wasp-Sting tight because I must hold her as I died so that I would go to Valhalla and drink and feast with my enemies.

Then suddenly the huge pressure vanished. Suddenly the Danes stepped back. They still fought. A snarling beast of a brute was hammering an axe at my shield, he split the boards, tried to rip the shield from my wounded arm, and Uhtred stepped in front of me and stabbed low so that the man dropped his shield and my son’s stolen sword swept up, fast as a kingfisher’s flight, to slash across the man’s throat so that his brown beard turned dripping red. Uhtred stepped back, a Dane came for him and he contemptuously beat the man’s sword aside and rammed his blade into the attacker’s chest. That man fell backwards and there was no one behind to hold him upright and I realised that the Danes were now going backwards.

Because Edward of Wessex had arrived.

The poets sing of slaughter, though I have seen very few poets on a field of slaughter and those I have seen were usually whimpering at the back with their hands over their eyes, though that slaughter at Teotanheale was worthy of the greatest poet. Doubtless you have heard the songs that tell of King Edward’s victory, how he cut down the Danish foemen, how he waded in pagan blood, and how God gave him a triumph that will be remembered as long as the world exists.

It was not quite like that. In truth Edward arrived when it was almost over, though he did fight and he fought bravely. It was Steapa, my friend, who panicked the Danes. Steapa Snotor he had been called, Steapa the Clever, which was a cruel joke because he was not a clever man. He was slow-thinking, but he was also loyal and terrible in battle. He had been born a slave, but had risen to become the leader of Alfred’s household troops, and Edward had been clever enough to keep Steapa in his service. And Steapa now led horsemen in a fierce charge against the enemy’s rear ranks.

It is a truth that men who do not feel the joy of battle, men who are frightened of the shield wall, will be at the rear. Some of them, perhaps most, will be drunk, because many men will use ale or mead to find the courage to fight. Those men are the worst troops and they were attacked by Steapa leading the king’s household men and that was when the slaughter began, and when the slaughter begins, panic quickly follows.

The Danes broke.

The men at the back of the Danish ranks were in loose order, their shields were not touching, they expected no attack, and they broke apart before Steapa even reached them. They ran to find their horses and were ridden down by Saxon horsemen. More Saxons were making a new shield wall at the ford, and I saw that I had been looking in the wrong direction to find Edward’s approach. I had thought he would come from the south, but instead he had followed the Roman roads from Tameworþig and so came from the east. The dragon banner of Wessex had been unfurled, and close to it was Æthelred’s flag of the prancing horse, and I suddenly laughed aloud because there was a third flagstaff held high aloft at the centre of the rapidly forming shield wall, and this third staff had no banner. Instead a skeleton was tied to the long pole, a skeleton without a skull and with only one arm. Saint Oswald had come to fight for his people, and the bones were held high above an army of West Saxons and Mercians. The shield wall grew longer as Steapa’s men herded the fleeing Danes like wolfhounds chasing goats.

And someone checked the Danish panic. Their battle was still not lost. The men at the rear of the shield wall had broken and were being slain by Steapa’s vengeful horsemen, but hundreds of others went east towards the ditch-like river where a man was bellowing at them to form a new shield wall. And they did make a new wall, and I remember thinking what magnificent warriors they were. They had been surprised and panicked, but still they had discipline enough to turn and stand. The man bellowing orders was on horseback. ‘It’s Cnut,’ Finan said.

‘I thought the bastard was dead.’

We were no longer fighting. The Danes had fled from us and we had stayed on the ridge surrounded by blood-laced bodies, by a rim of bodies, some still living.

‘It’s Cnut,’ Finan said again.

It was Cnut. I could see him now, a figure in white amongst ranks of mail-grey men. He had found a horse and was riding beneath his big banner, constantly looking back to watch the West Saxons crossing the ford. He was plainly determined to rescue as much of his army as he could and his best hope was to go north. Edward and Æthelred’s forces were blocking any escape southwards, Steapa’s horsemen were rampaging to the west, but there were still those Danes to the north who, though they had failed to break the Welsh shield wall, had kept their discipline as they retreated down the hill. Cnut now led the remainder of his army towards them, using the strip of pasture between the river and the ridge. He had lost almost all his horses, and perhaps a quarter of his men were either dead, wounded or fleeing, but he still led a formidable army and he planned to lead it north till he found a place to make a stand.

Edward’s shield wall was still forming, while Steapa’s men would be helpless against Cnut’s new shield wall. Horses can chase down fleeing men, but no horse will charge into a shield wall, which meant Cnut was safe for the moment. Safe and escaping, and I knew only one way to stop him.

I seized Æthelstan’s horse and dragged the boy from the saddle. He yelped in protest, but I threw him aside, put my foot in the stirrup and hauled myself up. I took the reins and kicked the horse towards the river. The Welshmen on the east of the ridge parted to let me through and I spurred into a billow of pungent smoke that bellied from a dying fire, then was clear of the hill’s crest and galloping down towards the Danes. ‘Are you running, you coward?’ I bellowed at Cnut. ‘Have you got no belly for a fight, you slug-shit?’

He stopped and turned towards me. His men also stopped. One of them threw a spear at me, but the weapon fell short.

‘Running away?’ I jeered. ‘Abandoning your son? I’ll sell him to slavery, Cnut Turdson. I’ll sell him to some fat Frank who likes small boys. Such men pay well for fresh meat.’

And Cnut took the bait. He spurred his horse free of the ranks and came towards me. He stopped a score of paces away, kicked his feet from the stirrups and slid down from the saddle. ‘Just you and me,’ he said, drawing Ice-Spite. He carried no shield. ‘It’s fate, Uhtred,’ he said it almost mildly, as though we discussed the weather. ‘The gods want it, they want you and me. They want to know who’s the best.’

‘You haven’t much time,’ I answered. Edward’s shield wall was almost formed and I could hear his captains shouting, making certain the ranks were tight.

‘I don’t need time to finish your miserable life,’ Cnut said. ‘Now get off your horse and fight.’

I dismounted. I remember thinking how strange it was because just across the river two women were gleaning in a field of stubble, bent over to find the precious grain, apparently uninterested in the armies beyond the ditch. I still had my shield, but my shoulder and arm hurt. The pain felt like fire burning down the muscles, and when I tried to lift the shield there was a stab of agony that made me flinch.

And Cnut attacked. He ran at me, Ice-Spite in his right hand, coming high towards the left side of my head and I lifted the shield despite the pain and somehow, I never knew how, his sword was coming from my right, only it was lunging for my ribs and I remember being astonished at the skill and speed of that stroke, but Serpent-Breath knocked the quick blade aside and I tried to bring her up for a counter-stroke, but Cnut was already slicing the blade at my neck and I had to duck. I heard it clash and scrape on my helmet and I rammed the shield at him, using my greater weight to crush him, but he skipped aside, lunged again and Ice-Spite pierced mail to cut my belly. I went back fast, taking the sting from the blow as I felt warm blood trickle down my skin, then at last I made a cut with Serpent-Breath, a backhanded stroke that scythed towards his shoulder and he was forced back, but came forward as soon as the blade passed him, lunging again, and I caught the tip of Ice-Spite on the lower rim of my shield and swung Serpent-Breath back to strike his helmet. The blade clashed loud on the side of his helmet, but he was moving away and there was no real power in the blow. It still shook him and I saw his teeth gritted, but he pulled Ice-Spite free of my shield and stabbed down at my left foot and I felt a lance of pain as I punched his face with Serpent-Breath’s hilt to drive him back. He went back and I followed, swinging, but my wounded foot slipped in a patch of cow shit and I went down on my right knee, and Cnut, his nose bleeding, lunged his sword at me.

He was quick. He was like lightning, and the only way to slow him was to be close, to crowd him, and I drove myself forward from my knees, using the shield to deflect the lunge and try to hammer it onto his face. I was taller than he, I was heavier, I had to use that height and weight to overwhelm him, but he knew what I was doing. He grinned through the blood on his face and flicked Ice-Spite so that she tapped the side of my helmet, and he skipped back, hesitated, but the hesitation was a ruse for as soon as I stepped towards him the pale blade darted at my face, I flinched away and he tapped her on my helmet again. He laughed. ‘You’re not good enough, Uhtred.’

I paused, breathing heavily, watching him, but he knew that was my ruse. He just smiled and let Ice-Spite drop as if inviting me to strike. ‘Strange to say,’ he said, ‘I like you.’

‘I like you too,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d killed you on the ridge-top.’

He used his free hand to touch the thick iron buckle of his sword belt. ‘You dented that,’ he said, ‘and took all the wind from me. It hurt, really hurt. I couldn’t breathe for a while and my men dragged me away.’

I lifted Serpent-Breath and Ice-Spite flicked up. ‘Next time it will be your throat,’ I said.

‘You’re quicker than most,’ he said, ‘but not quick enough.’ His men were watching from the hill’s foot, as my men and their Welsh saviours were watching from the ridge’s top. Even Edward’s shield wall had stopped to watch. ‘If they see you die,’ Cnut said, twitching Ice-Spite’s tip towards the West Saxon and Mercian army, ‘they’ll lose heart. That’s why I have to kill you, but I’ll make it fast.’ He grinned. There was blood in his pale moustache and more trickled from his broken nose. ‘It won’t hurt much, I promise, so hold your sword tight, friend, and we’ll meet in Valhalla.’ He took a half-pace towards me. ‘Ready?’

I glanced to my right, to where Edward’s men had crossed the ford. ‘They’re marching again,’ I said.

He looked southwards and I leaped. I sprang at him, and for a splinter of time he was looking at the West Saxons who were being urged forward, but he recovered fast and Ice-Spite darted up to my face and I felt her scrape on my cheekbone and catch between my skull and the helmet, and I did not know it but I was screaming a war shout as I slammed the shield onto him, thrusting it down to drive him to the ground, and he twisted like an eel, dragged his sword arm back and the blade cut my cheek, and the shield caught his right arm and all my weight and strength were in that blow, yet still he managed to dodge aside. I back-swung Serpent-Breath at him and he dodged and she went wide so that my arms were spread, the shield off to my left after its sweeping blow and Serpent-Breath to my right, and I saw him change hands, saw Ice-Spite in his left hand and saw her come at me like a stab of lightning and the blade struck me, she pierced the mail and broke the leather and she shattered a rib and pierced me and he was screaming his victory as I brought Serpent-Breath back in a last desperate swing and she crashed into his helmet and stunned him, and he went backwards, falling, and I was falling on him, my chest a furnace of pain, Ice-Spite inside me, and Serpent-Breath was across his throat and I remember sawing her and seeing her cut and the blood spraying into my face and my war cry became a scream of pain as we both fell on the meadow.

And then I remember nothing.

‘Quiet,’ the voice said, then said it louder, ‘quiet!’

There was a fire burning. I sensed a lot of people in a small room. There was the stench of blood, of burned bread, of woodsmoke and of rotted floor rushes.

‘He won’t die,’ another voice said, but not close to me.

‘The spear broke his skull?’

‘I lifted the bone back, now we must pray.’

‘But I wasn’t wounded in the skull,’ I said, ‘it’s my chest. His sword went into my chest. Low down on my left side.’

They ignored me. I wondered why I could not see. I turned my head and there was a glow in the dark of my eyes.

‘Lord Uhtred moved.’ It was Æthelflaed’s voice and I became aware that her small hand was holding my left hand.

‘It was my chest,’ I said, ‘tell them it was my chest. It wasn’t my skull.’

‘The skull heals,’ a man said, the same man who had talked about lifting the bone back.

‘It was my chest, you idiot,’ I said.

‘I think he’s trying to speak,’ Æthelflaed said.

There was something in my right hand. I tightened my fingers and felt the familiar roughness of the leather bindings. Serpent-Breath. I felt a wash of relief go through me because whatever happened I had held onto her and my grip would carry me to Valhalla.

‘Valhalla,’ I said.

‘I think he’s just moaning,’ a man said close by.

‘He’ll never know he killed Cnut,’ another man said.

‘He will know!’ Æthelflaed said fiercely.

‘My lady …’

‘He will know!’ she insisted, and her fingers tightened on mine.

‘I do know,’ I said. ‘I cut his throat, of course I know.’

‘Just moaning,’ the man’s voice said very close by. A cloth with rough weave was wiped across my lips, then there was a gust of colder air and the sound of people entering the room. A half-dozen people spoke at once, then someone was close by my head and a hand stroked my forehead.

‘He’s not dead, Finan,’ Æthelflaed said softly.

Finan said nothing. ‘I killed him,’ I said to Finan. ‘But he was fast. Even faster than you.’

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Finan said, ‘I can’t imagine life without him.’ He sounded heartbroken.

‘I’m not dead, you Irish bastard,’ I said, ‘we have battles yet to fight, you and I.’

‘Is he speaking?’ Finan asked.

‘Just groaning,’ a man’s voice answered, and I was aware that more folk had come into the room. Finan’s hand went away and another took its place.

‘Father?’ It was Uhtred.

‘I’m sorry if I was cruel to you,’ I said, ‘but you’re good. You killed Sigurd! Men will know you now.’

‘Oh dear God,’ Uhtred said, then his hand went away. ‘Lord?’ he said.

‘How is he?’ That was King Edward of Wessex. There was a rustle as men went to their knees.

‘He can’t last long,’ a man’s voice said.

‘And Lord Æthelred?’

‘The wound is grievous, lord, but I think he will live.’

‘God be praised. What happened?’

There was a pause as if no one wanted to answer. ‘I’m not dying,’ I said, and no one took any notice.

‘Lord Æthelred was attacked by a group of Danes, lord,’ a man said, ‘at the end of the battle. Most were surrendering. These tried to kill Lord Æthelred.’

‘I see no wound,’ the king said.

‘The back of his skull, lord. The helmet took most of the blow, but the tip of the spear went through.’

The back of his skull, I thought, it would be the back of his skull. I laughed. It hurt. I stopped laughing.

‘Is he dying?’ a voice close by asked.

Æthelflaed’s fingers gripped mine hard. ‘He’s just choking,’ she said.

‘Sister,’ the king said.

‘Be quiet, Edward!’ she said fiercely.

‘You should be at your husband’s side,’ Edward said sternly.

‘You boring little fart,’ I told him.

‘I am where I wish to be,’ Æthelflaed said in a tone I knew well. No one would win an argument with her now, and no one tried, though a voice muttered something about her behaviour being unseemly.

‘They’re rancid shit-wits,’ I told her, and felt her hand stroke my forehead.

There was silence except for the crackle of the burning logs in the hearth. ‘Has he been given the rites?’ the king asked after a while.

‘He doesn’t want the rites,’ Finan said.

‘He must have them,’ Edward insisted. ‘Father Uhtred?’

‘His name isn’t Uhtred,’ I snarled, ‘he’s called Father Judas. The bastard should have been a warrior!’

Yet to my surprise Father Judas was weeping. His hands shook as he touched me, as he prayed over me, as he administered the death rites. When he finished he left his fingers on my lips. ‘He was a loving father,’ he said.

‘Of course I wasn’t,’ I said.

‘A difficult man,’ Edward said, though not unsympathetically.

‘He was not difficult,’ Æthelflaed said fiercely, ‘but he was only happy when he was fighting. And you were all frightened of him, but in truth he was generous, kind and stubborn.’ She was crying now.

‘Oh, do stop it, woman,’ I said, ‘you know I can’t bear weeping women.’

‘Tomorrow we go south,’ the king announced, ‘and we shall give thanks for a great victory.’

‘A victory Lord Uhtred gave you,’ Æthelflaed said.

‘That he gave us,’ the king agreed, ‘and that God allowed him to give us. And we shall build burhs in Mercia. There is God’s work to do.’

‘My father would want to be buried at Bebbanburg,’ Father Judas said.

‘I want to be buried with Gisela!’ I said. ‘But I’m not dying!’

I could not see, not even the glow of the fire. Or rather I could only see a great vault that was both dark and light at the same time, a cave shot through with strange lights, and somewhere in the far recesses of that glowing darkness were figures and I thought Gisela was one, and I gripped Serpent-Breath as the pain tore through me again so that I arched my back and that made the pain worse. Æthelflaed gasped and clung to my hand and another hand closed about the grip I had on Serpent-Breath, holding me tight to her.

‘He’s going,’ Æthelflaed said.

‘God take his soul.’ It was Finan who was holding my hand to Serpent-Breath’s hilt.

‘I am not!’ I said. ‘I am not!’ And the woman in the cave was alone now and it really was Gisela, lovely Gisela, and she was smiling at me, holding her hands towards me, and she was speaking though I could not hear her voice. ‘Be quiet, all of you,’ I said, ‘I want to hear Gisela.’

‘Any moment,’ a voice said in a hushed tone.

A long pause. A hand touched my face. ‘He still lives, God be praised,’ Father Judas said uncertainly.

Then there was another silence. A long silence. Gisela had faded and my eyes stared at misted nothingness. I was aware of people around the bed. A horse neighed and out in the dark an owl called.

‘Wyrd bið ful āræd,’ I said, and no one answered, so I said it again.

Wyrd bið ful āræd.