The Burning Land

FIVE

Æthelflæd joined me on the rampart. She said nothing at first, but, careless of who watched, just put her arms round me. I could feel her body trembling. My battered shield was still looped on my left arm and it covered her when I drew her close. “I thought you were dead,” she said after a while.

“Who told you that?”

“No one,” she said. “I was watching.”

“Watching? Where?”

“From the edge of the encampment,” she said calmly.

“Are you mad?” I asked angrily, and pushed her away so I could look down at her. “You wanted the Danes to capture you?”

“There’s blood all over your face,” she said, touching my cheek with a finger. “It’s dried. Was it bad?”

“Yes, but that will be far worse.” I nodded down at the new fort.

The fort was built at the foot of the hill, where the steep grassy drop leveled into a gentler slope that ended as a low ridge snaking into the marsh beside the creek. It was near low tide and I could see the intricate mudbanks where the creek melded into marsh, and I saw how Haesten had built his new fort on that last tongue of firmer ground, but then had dug a broad moat to protect the eastern wall from a frontal assault. He had made the fort into an island, three times as long as it was wide. The southern rampart stretched along the creek and was protected by the deep-water channel, the western and northern walls looked over wide flooded inlets and endless tide-haunted marshes, while the short eastern palisade, which held the main gate and was facing us, was protected by its newly dug moat. A wooden bridge crossed the moat, but now that the last fugitives were safely across, men were dismantling it and carrying the roadway’s wide planks back into the fort. Some of the men were working in the water, which, at the center of the moat, only came to their waists. So the moat could be crossed at low tide, though that was small consolation because the difference between high and low tide here was at least twice the height of a well-grown man, which meant that when the moat was fordable the farther bank would be a steep slope of glutinous and slick mud.

The interior of the fort was crammed with buildings, some roofed with planks and others with sailcloth, but no thatch, meaning Haesten was guarding against the possibility of fire-arrows setting his stronghold alight. I guessed many of the beams and posts to make the houses had been taken from the village which had been dismantled and burned, its ruins lying to the east of the new fort where the hill’s lower slope was widest. There were scores of Danes inside the long fort, but even more were evidently living aboard their ships. Over two hundred of the high-prowed war vessels were beached high on the creek’s farther bank. Most had been dismasted and some had awnings stretched across their crutch-supported masts. Washed clothes were drying on the awnings, while in the hulls’ shadows children played in the mud or else gaped up at us. I also counted twenty-three moored ships, all of them with their masts in place and with sails furled on their yards. Every one of those moored ships had men aboard, suggesting they could be made ready for sea at a moment’s notice. I had been thinking of bringing vessels downstream from Lundene, but the evident preparedness of the moored ships suggested that any small fleet we deployed would quickly be overwhelmed.

Steapa shambled toward us. His face, so fearsome because of the taut skin and feral eyes, looked suddenly nervous as he knelt to Æthelflæd and pulled off his helmet, leaving his hair tangled. “My lady,” he said, blinking.

“Get up, Steapa,” she said.

This was a man who would take on a dozen Danes and whose sword was feared in three kingdoms, but he was in awe of Æthelflæd. She was royalty and he was a slave’s son. “The Lady Æthelflæd,” I said imperiously, “wants you to go down the hill, cross the moat, beat down the gates, and bring the Danes out.”

For a moment he believed me. He looked alarmed, then he frowned at me, but did not know what to say.

“Thank you, Steapa,” Æthelflæd said warmly, saving Steapa from his confusion. “You won a magnificent victory! I shall make sure my father knows of your triumph.”

He brightened at that, but still stammered. “We were lucky, my lady.”

“We always seem to be lucky when you fight. How is Hedda?”

“She’s well, lady!” He beamed at her, astonished she should condescend to ask such a question. I could never remember the name of Steapa’s wife, a tiny creature, but Æthelflæd knew, and even knew the name of his son.

“Is my brother near?” Æthelflæd asked.

“He was with us in the fight,” Steapa said, “so he must be close, my lady.”

“I shall find him,” she announced.

“Not without a bodyguard,” I growled. I suspected some fugitive Danes were still in the woods.

“The Lord Uhtred thinks I’m a baby who needs protecting,” Æthelflæd told Steapa.

“He knows best, lady,” Steapa said loyally.

Æthelflæd’s horse was brought and I cupped my hands to let her mount. I ordered Weohstan and his horsemen to escort her as she rode back toward the smoke of the burning old hall, then I gave Steapa a thump on his back. It was like punching an oak tree. “Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“For keeping me alive.”

“You seemed to be doing well enough,” he muttered.

“I was just dying slowly,” I said, “till you came along.”

He grunted and turned to stare down at the fort. “That be a bastard,” he said. “How do we take it?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Has to be done though,” he said, almost as a question.

“And quickly,” I stressed. It had to be quick because we had our hand on the enemy’s throat, but he still had both arms free. Those arms were the savage troops harrying Mercia who had left their families and ships in Beamfleot, and many of those men valued their ships more than their families. The Danes were opportunists. They attacked where they sensed weakness, but as soon as the fighting became too hard they boarded their ships and sailed away to find feebler prey. If I destroyed this huge fleet then the crews would be stranded in Britain and, if Wessex survived, they could be hunted down and slaughtered. Haesten might be confident that Beamfleot’s new fort was impregnable, but his followers would soon be pressing him to raise our siege. In short, once the Danes ravaging Mercia knew we were a real threat and were present in real numbers, they would want to return to protect their ships and families. “Very quickly,” I added.

“So we have to cross that ditch,” Steapa said, nodding down at the moat, “and put ladders against the wall.” He made it sound simple.

“That’s my idea too,” I said.

“Jesus,” he muttered and made the sign of the cross.

Horns sounded to the north and I turned to stare across the saddle of land where the scattered corpses of men and horses still lay and where still more horsemen were appearing from the far woods. One rider was carrying a vast dragon banner, which told me the Ætheling Edward had arrived.

Alfred’s son paused outside the fort, sitting on his horse in the sunlight while servants and packhorses hurried through the gate and up to the larger of the two halls. Both halls were in disrepair. Finan, who had searched them both, joined us on the rampart and said that the halls had been used as stables. “It’ll be like living in a cesspit,” he said.

Edward still waited beyond the gate with Æthelflæd beside him. “Why isn’t he coming into the fort?” I asked.

“He has to have a throne,” Finan said, and laughed at the ex pression on my face. “It’s true! They’ve brought him a rug, a throne, and god knows what else. An altar too.”

“He will be the next king,” Steapa said loyally.

“Unless I manage to kill the bastard while we’re crossing that wall,” I said, pointing to the Danish fort. Steapa looked shocked, then cheered up when I asked him how Alfred was faring.

“He’s as good as ever!” Steapa said. “We thought he was dying! He’s much better now. He can ride again, even walk!”

“I heard he’d died.”

“He nearly did. They gave him the last rites, but he recovered. He’s gone to Exanceaster.”

“What’s happening down there?”

Steapa shrugged. “Danes made a camp and are sitting inside it.”

“They want Alfred to pay them to leave,” I suggested. I thought of Ragnar, and imagined his unhappiness because Brida would undoubtedly be urging him to assault Exanceaster, but that burh was a hard one to attack. It lay on a hill, the approaches were steep, and Alfred’s trained army was protecting its stout ramparts, which was why, at least by the time Steapa left, the Danes had made no attempt to attack it. “Haesten was clever,” I said.

“Clever?” Steapa asked.

“He persuaded the Northumbrians to attack by saying he’d distract Alfred’s army,” I explained, “and then he warned Alfred of the Northumbrian attack to make sure he didn’t have to fight the West Saxons.”

“He has to fight us,” Steapa growled.

“Because Alfred is just as clever,” I said. Alfred knew Haesten was the greater threat. If Haesten could be defeated then the Northumbrians would lose heart and, in all likelihood, sail away. Ragnar’s Northumbrians had to be held at bay, which is why so much of the West Saxon army was in Defnascir, but Alfred had sent his son and twelve hundred of his best men to Beamfleot. He wanted me to weaken Haesten, but he wanted much more than that.

He wanted the Ætheling Edward’s reputation to be burnished by the victory. Alfred had not needed to sent the Ætheling. Steapa and his men were indispensable to me, while Edward was a liability, but Alfred knew his own death could not be too distant and he wanted to be certain that his son succeeded him, and for that he needed to give Edward a warrior’s renown. Which is why he had asked me to give Edward my oath and I reflected bitterly that my refusal had not prevented Alfred from manipulating me so that I was here, fighting for the Christians and fighting for Edward.

The Ætheling at last entered the fort, his arrival announced by horn blasts. Men knelt as he rode to the hall and I watched him acknowledge the homage with graceful waves of his right hand. He looked young and slight, and I remembered Ragnar asking if I wanted to be King of Wessex and I could not resist a sudden, bitter laugh. Finan glanced at me curiously. “He’ll want us in the hall,” Steapa said.

The big hall stank. The servants had shoveled the horse dung to one side, and raked out most of the stale floor-rushes, but the hall still reeked like a latrine and buzzed with fat flies. I had feasted here once, back when the hall was lit by fire and loud with laughter and the memory made me wonder if all the great high-beamed feasting halls were doomed to decay.

There was no dais, so Edward’s chair was set on a great rug and next to him was a stool on which Æthelflæd sat. Behind the brother and sister was a dark group of priests. I knew none of them, but they evidently knew me because four of the six churchmen made the sign of the cross when I approached the makeshift throne.

Steapa knelt to the Ætheling, Finan bowed, and I nodded my head. Edward evidently expected more obeisance from me and waited, but when it was plain that I had offered him all I was prepared to give he forced a smile. “You did well,” he said in his high voice. There was neither warmth nor conviction in the compliment.

I slapped Steapa’s back. “Steapa did well, lord.”

“He is a loyal warrior and a good Christian,” Edward said, implying that I was neither.

“He’s also a big ugly brute,” I said, “and he makes Danes shit themselves with fear.”

Edward and the priests all bridled at that. Edward was steeling himself to reprove me when Æthelflæd’s laughter cut across the hall. Edward looked annoyed at the sound, but composed himself. “I am sorry that the Lord Ælfwold died,” he said.

“I share your sorrow, lord.”

“My father,” he said, “has sent me to capture this nest of heathen pirates.” He spoke in the same way that he sat; stiffly. He was horribly conscious of his youth and of his fragile authority, but, like his father, he had intelligent eyes. He was lost in this hall, though. He was frightened of my blood-spattered face, and frightened of most of the older warriors who had been killing Danes when he was still sucking on his wet nurse’s tits. “The question,” he said, “is how.”

“Steapa already has the answer,” I said.

Edward looked relieved and Steapa looked alarmed. “Speak, Steapa,” Edward said.

Steapa looked at me in fright so I answered for him. “We have to cross the moat and climb the wall,” I said, “and we can only do that at low tide, and the Danes know it. They also know we have to do it quickly.”

There was silence. I had stated the obvious and that clearly disappointed Edward, but what did he expect? That I would have some sorcerous scheme born from pagan wiles? Or did he believe angels would fly from the Christian heaven and attack the Danes inside the fort? There were only two ways to capture Beamfleot. One was to starve the Danes, and we did not have the time to do that, and the other was to storm the walls. Sometimes, in war, simple is the only answer. It is also likely to be a blood-soaked answer, and all the men in the hall knew it. Some looked at me reproachfully, imagining the horror of trying to scale a high palisade manned by murderous Danes. “So,” I went on confidently, “we need to be busy. Weohstan,” I turned to him, “your men will patrol the marshes to stop messengers leaving the fort. Beornoth, take Lord Ælfwold’s men and threaten the ship-forts at the creek’s end. You, lord,” I looked at Edward, “your men must start making ladders, and you,” I pointed at the six priests, “what are you good for?”

Edward just stared at me in horror and the priests looked offended. “They can pray, Lord Uhtred?” Æthelflæd suggested sweetly.

“Then pray hard,” I told them.

There was silence again. Men expected a council of war, and Edward, who was notionally in charge, would have liked the pretense that he was making the decisions, but we did not have time to argue. “Ladders,” Edward finally said in a puzzled voice.

“We climb them,” I said savagely, “and we need at least forty.”

Edward blinked. I could see he was debating whether to slap me down, but then he must have decided that victory at Beamfleot was preferable to making an enemy. He even managed a smile. “They will be made,” he said graciously.

“So all we have to do,” I said, “is get them across the moat, then use them to climb the wall.” Edward’s smile faded.

Because even he knew men would die. Too many men.

But there was no other way.

The first problem was crossing the moat, to which end I rode north the next day. I was worried that Haesten would lead his men back to relieve the siege and we sent strong scouting parties west and north to watch for the coming of that army. In the end it never did come. Haesten, it seemed, was confident of Beamfleot’s strength and of the courage of its garrison, so instead of trying to destroy us he sent his raiding parties ever farther into Mercia, attacking unwalled towns and villages that had thought themselves safe because they were close to the West Saxon border. The skies over Mercia were palled with smoke.

I rode to Thunresleam and found the priest, Heahberht. I told him what I wanted, and Osferth, who was leading the eighteen men who accompanied me, gave the priest a spare horse. “I’ll fall off, lord,” Heahberht said nervously, staring with his one eye at the tall stallion.

“You’ll be safe,” I said. “Just cling on. That horse will look after you.”

I had taken Osferth and his men because we were riding north into East Anglia and that was Danish territory. I did not expect trou ble. Any Dane who wished to fight the Saxons would already have ridden with Haesten, so those who had remained on their land probably wanted no part of the war, yet even so it was prudent to ride in force. We were just about to go north from the village when Osferth warned me that more horsemen were approaching, and I turned to see them coming from the woods that screened Beamfleot.

My first thought was that Haesten’s army must have been seen far to the west and these horsemen rode to warn me, but then one rider raised a dragon banner and I saw it was the flag of the Ætheling Edward. Edward himself was with them, accompanied by a score of warriors and a priest. “I haven’t seen much East Anglian territory,” he explained his presence awkwardly, “and wish to accompany you.”

“You’re welcome, lord,” I said in a voice that made it amply clear he was not.

“This is Father Coenwulf,” Edward introduced the priest who gave me a reluctant nod. He was a pale-skinned man, some ten years or so older than Edward. “Father Coenwulf was my tutor,” Edward said with an affectionate tone, “and is now my confessor and friend.”

“What did you teach him?” I asked Coenwulf, who made no answer, but just stared at me with indignant and very blue eyes.

“Philosophy,” Edward said, “and the writings of the church fathers.”

“I learned just one useful lesson as a child,” I told him. “Beware the blow that comes under the shield. This is Father Heahberht,” I gestured at the one-eyed priest, “and this is the Ætheling Edward,” I said to the village priest who almost fell from his horse in terror of meeting such an exalted prince.

Father Heahberht was our guide. I had asked him where there might be ships, and he had said that he had seen two trading ships being hauled from a river to the north less than a week before. “They aren’t far away, lord,” he had told me. He said the ships belonged to a Danish trader and had been beached for repairs. “But they may not be seaworthy, lord,” he added nervously.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, “just take us there.”

It was a warm, sun-kissed day. We rode through good farmland that Father Heahberht said belonged to a man called Thorstein who had ridden with Haesten into Mercia. Thorstein had done well for himself. His land was well watered, had fine woodlands and healthy orchards. “Where’s his hall?” I asked Heahberht.

“We’re going there, lord.”

“Is this Thorstein a Christian?” Edward wanted to know.

“He says so, lord,” Heahberht stammered, blushing. He obviously wanted to say more, but fear meant he could not find the words and he just gazed slack-jawed at the Ætheling. Edward waved the priest ahead of us, but the poor man had no idea how to quicken his horse so Osferth leaned over to take his bridle. They trotted ahead with Heahberht gripping the saddle’s pommel for dear life.

Edward grimaced. “A country priest,” he said dismissively.

“They do more harm than good,” Coenwulf said. “One of our duties, lord, will be to educate the country clergy.”

“He wears the short tunic!” Edward observed knowingly. The Pope himself had ordered priests to wear full-length robes, a command Alfred had enthusiastically endorsed.

“Father Heahberht,” I said, “is a clever man, and a good one. But he’s frightened of you.”

“Of me!” Edward asked, “why?”

“Because he’s a peasant,” I said, “but a peasant who learned to read. Can you even imagine how hard it was for him to become a priest? And all his life he’s been pissed on by thegns. So of course he’s scared of you. And he wears a short robe because he can’t afford a long one, and because he lives in mud and shit, and short robes don’t get as filthy as long ones. So how would you feel if you were a peasant who meets a man who might one day be King of Wessex?”

Edward said nothing, but Father Coenwulf pounced. “Might?” he demanded indignantly.

“Might indeed,” I said airily. I was goading them, reminding Edward that he had a cousin, Æthelwold, who had more right to the throne than Edward himself, though Æthelwold, Alfred’s nephew, was a poor excuse of a man.

My words silenced Edward for a while, but Father Coenwulf was made of sterner stuff. “I was surprised, lord,” he broke the silence, “to discover the Lady Æthelflæd here.”

“Surprised?” I asked, “why? She’s an adventurous lady.”

“Her place,” Father Coenwulf said, “is with her husband. My lord the Ætheling will agree with me, is that not so, lord?”

I glanced at Edward and saw him redden. “She should not be here,” he forced himself to say and I almost laughed aloud. I realized now why he had ridden with us. He was not much interested in seeing a few miles of East Anglia, instead he had come to carry out his father’s instructions, and those instructions were to persuade Æthelflæd to her duty. “Why tell me?” I asked the pair.

“You have influence over the lady,” Father Coenwulf said grimly.

We had crossed a watershed and were riding down a long and gentle slope. The path was edged with coppiced willows and there were glimpses of water far ahead, silver sheens bright beneath the pale sky. “So,” I ignored Coenwulf and looked at Edward, “your father sent you to reprove your sister?”

“It is a Christian duty to remind her of her responsibilities,” he answered very stiffly.

“I hear he is recovered from his illness,” I said.

“For which God be praised,” Coenwulf put in.

“Amen,” Edward said.

But Alfred could not live long. He was already an old man, well past forty years, and now he was looking to the future. He was doing what he always did, arranging things, tidying things, trying to impose order on a kingdom beset by enemies. He believed his baleful god would punish Wessex if it were not a godly kingdom, and so he was trying to force Æthelflæd back to her husband, or else, I guessed, to a nunnery. There could be no visible sin in Alfred’s family, and that thought inspired me. I looked at Edward again. “Do you know Osferth?” I asked cheerfully. He blushed at that and Father Coenwulf glared as if warning me to take that subject no further. “You haven’t met?” I asked Edward in pretended innocence, then called to Osferth. “Wait for us!”

Father Coenwulf tried to turn Edward’s horse away, but I caught hold of the bridle and forced the Ætheling to catch up with his half-brother. “Tell me,” I said to Osferth, “how you would make the Mercians fight.”

Osferth frowned at the question, wondering just what lay behind it. He glanced at Edward, but did not acknowledge his half-brother, though the resemblance between them was startling. They both had Alfred’s long face, hollow cheeks, and thin lips. Osferth’s face was harder, but he had lived harder too. His father, ashamed of his own bastard, had tried to make Osferth a priest, but Osferth had turned himself into a warrior, a trade to which he brought his father’s intelligence. “The Mercians can fight as well as anyone,” Osferth said cautiously. He knew I was playing some game and was trying to detect it and so, unseen by either Edward or Coenwulf who both rode on my left, I cupped a hand to indicate a breast and Osferth, despite having inherited his father’s almost complete lack of humor, had to resist an amused smile. “They need leadership,” he said confidently.

“Then we thank God for the Lord Æthelred,” Father Coenwulf said, refusing to look directly at Osferth.

“The Lord Æthelred,” I said savagely, “couldn’t lead a wet whore to a dry bed.”

“But the Lady Æthelflæd is much loved in Mercia,” Osferth said, now playing his part to perfection. “We saw that at Fearnhamme. It was the Lady Æthelflæd who inspired the Mercians.”

“You’ll need the Mercians,” I told Edward. “If you become king,” I went on, stressing the “if” to keep him unbalanced, “the Mercians will protect your northern frontier. And the Mercians don’t love Wessex. They may fight for you, but they don’t love you. They were a proud country once, and they don’t like being told what to do by Wessex. But they do love one West Saxon. And you’d shut her up in a convent?”

“She is a married…” Father Coenwulf began.

“Oh, shut your mouth,” I snapped at him. “Your king used his daughter to bring me south, and here I am, and I’ll stay here so long as Æthelflæd asks. But don’t think I’m here for you, or for your god, or for your king. If you have plans for Æthelflæd then you had better count me as a part of them.”

Edward was too embarrassed to meet my eyes. Father Coenwulf was angry, but dared not speak, while Osferth grinned at me. Father Heahberht had listened to the conversation with a shocked expression, but now found his timid voice. “The hall is that way, lords,” he said, pointing, and we turned down a track rutted by cart wheels and I saw a reed-thatched roof showing between some heavy-leaved elm trees. I kicked ahead of Edward, to see that Thorstein’s home was built on a low ridge above the river. There was a village beyond the hall, its small houses straggling along the bank where dozens of fires smoked. “They dry herring here?” I asked the priest.

“And they make salt, lord.”

“Is there a palisade?”

“Yes, lord.”

The palisade was unmanned and the gates lay open. Thorstein had taken his warriors with Haesten, leaving only a handful of older men to protect his family and lands, and those men knew better than to put up a fight they must lose. Instead a steward welcomed us with a bowl of water. Thorstein’s gray-haired wife watched from the hall door, but when I turned to her she stepped back into the shadows and the door slammed shut.

The palisade enclosed the hall, three barns, a cattle shed, and a pair of elm-timbered slipways where the two ships had been hauled high above the tideline. They were trading ships, their fat bellies patched pale where carpenters were nailing new oak strakes. “Your master is a shipbuilder?” I asked the steward.

“They’ve always built ships here, lord,” he said humbly, meaning that Thorstein had stolen the shipyard from a Saxon.

I turned on Osferth. “Make sure the women aren’t molested,” I ordered, “and find a wagon and draft horses.” I looked back to the steward. “We need ale and food.”

“Yes, lord.”

There was a long low building beside the slipways and I went to it. Sparrows quarreled beneath the thatch. Once inside I had to let my eyes adjust to the gloom, but then I saw what I was seeking. Masts and spars and sails. I ordered my men to carry all the spars and sails out to the wagon, then walked to the shed’s open end to watch the river swirl past. The tide was falling, exposing long steep slicks of mud.

“Why spars and sails?” Edward asked from behind me. He was alone. “The steward brought mead,” he said awkwardly. He was frightened of me, but he was making a great effort to be friendly.

“Tell me,” I said, “what happened when you tried to capture Torneie.”

“Torneie?” Edward sounded confused.

“You attacked Harald on his island,” I said, “and you failed. I want to know why.” I had heard the story from Offa, the dog-man who carried his news between the kingdoms, but I had not asked anyone who was there. All I knew was that the assault on Harald’s fugitives had ended in defeat and with a great loss of men.

He frowned. “It was…” He stopped, shaking his head, perhaps remembering the men floundering through the mud to Harald’s palisade. “We never got close,” he said bitterly.

“Why not?”

He frowned. “There were stakes in the river. The mud was thick.”

“You think Beamfleot will be any easier?” I demanded, and saw the answer on his face. “So who led the attack on Torneie?” I asked.

“Æthelred and I,” he said.

“You led?” I asked pointedly. “You were in front?”

He stared at me, bit his lower lip, then looked embarrassed. “No.”

“Your father made certain you were protected?” I asked, and he nodded. “What about Lord Æthelred?” I went on, “did he lead?”

“He’s a brave man,” Edward said defiantly.

“You haven’t answered me.”

“He went with his men,” Edward said evasively, “but thank God he escaped the rout.”

“So why should you be King of Wessex?” I asked him brutally.

“I,” he said, then ran out of words and just looked at me with a pained expression. He had come into the shed trying to be friendly and I was raking him over.

“Because your father’s the king?” I suggested. “In the past we’ve chosen the best man to be king, not the one who happened to come from between the legs of a king’s wife.” He frowned, offended and uncertain, voiceless. “Tell me why I shouldn’t make Osferth king,” I said harshly. “He’s Alfred’s eldest son.”

“If there is no rule to the succession,” he said carefully, “then the death of a king will lead to chaos.”

“Rules,” I sneered, “how you love rules. So because Osferth’s mother was a servant he can’t be king?”

“No,” Edward found the courage to answer, “he can’t.”

“Luckily for you,” I said, “he doesn’t want to be king. At least I don’t think he does. But you do?” I waited and eventually he responded with an almost imperceptible nod. “And you have the advantage,” I went on, “of having been born between a pair of royal legs, but you still need to prove you deserve the kingship.” He stared at me, saying nothing. “You want to be king,” I went on, “so you must show you deserve it. You lead. You do what you didn’t do at Torneie, what my cousin didn’t do either. You go first into the attack. You can’t expect men to die for you unless they see you’re willing to die for them.”

He nodded to that. “Beamfleot?” he asked, unable to disguise his fear at the prospect of that assault.

“You want to be king?” I asked. “Then you lead the assault. Now come with me, and I’ll show you how.”

I took him outside and led him to the top of the river bank. The tide was almost out, leaving a slippery slope of gleaming mud at least twelve feet high. “How,” I asked him, “do we get up a slope like that?”

He did not answer, but just frowned as though considering the problem and then, to his utter astonishment, I shoved him hard over the edge. He cried aloud as he lost his footing, then he slipped and floundered on his royal arse all the way down to the water where at last he managed to stand unsteadily. He was mud-smeared and indignant. Father Coenwulf evidently thought I was trying to drown the Ætheling, for he rushed to my side where he stared down at the prince. “Draw your sword,” I told Edward, “and climb that bank.”

He drew his sword and took some tentative steps, but the slick mud defeated him so that he slithered back every time. “Try harder,” I snarled. “Try really hard! There are Danes at the top of the bank and you have to kill them. So climb!”

“What are you doing?” Coenwulf demanded of me.

“Making a king,” I told him quietly, then looked back to Edward. “Climb, you bastard! Get up here!”

He could not do it, cumbered as he was with heavy mail and with his long sword. He tried to crawl up the bank, but still he slid back. “That’s what it’s going to be like,” I told him, “climbing out of the moat at Beamfleot!”

He stared up at me, filthy and wet. “Do we make bridges?” he suggested.

“How do we make a bridge with a hundred farting Danes throwing spears at us?” I demanded. “Now come on! Climb!” He tried again, and again he failed. Then, as his men and mine watched from the top of the bank, Edward gritted his teeth and hurled himself at the greasy mud for one last determined attempt, and this time he managed to stay on the slope. He used his sword as a stick, inching higher and the men cheered. He kept slipping back, but his determination was obvious, and every small step was applauded. The heir to Alfred’s throne was plastered with mud and his precious dignity was gone, but he was suddenly enjoying himself. He was grinning. He kicked his boots into the mud, hauled on the sword, and at last managed to scramble over the bank’s edge. He stood, smiling at the cheers, and even Father Coenwulf was beaming with pride. “We have to climb the moat’s bank to reach the fort,” I told him, “and it will be just as steep and slippery as this slope. We’re never going to make it. The Danes will be raining arrows and spears. The bed of the moat will be thick with blood and bodies. We’re all going to die there.”

“The sails,” Edward said, understanding.

“Yes,” I said, “the sails.” I ordered Osferth to unfold one of the three sails we were stealing. It took six men to unwrap the great sheet of stiff, salt-caked cloth. Mice scampered out of the folds, but once it was spread I had men drape the sail down the mudbank. The sail itself offered no footholds because sailcloth is fragile, but ropes are sewn into it and thus every sail is a crisscross of reinforcing ropes, and those latticed lines would be our ladders. I took Edward’s elbow and he and I walked down the sail to the water’s edge. “Now,” I said, “try again. Full speed. Race me!”

He won. He ran at the bank and his boots caught on the sail ropes and he reached the top without using his hands once. He grinned with triumph as I came behind, then he had a sudden idea. “All of you!” he called to his bodyguard. “Down to the river and climb back up!”

They were suddenly enjoying themselves. All the men, mine as well as Edward’s, wanted to try the network of sail ropes. There were too many men, and eventually the sail slid down the bank, which is why I was taking the spars. I would thread the lattice of ropes onto the spars, then lash the spars into place so that the makeshift rope ladder would be stiffened by the spruce frame and, I hoped, stay in place. On that day we just pegged the sail to the bank and ran races, which Edward, to his evident delight, won repeatedly. He even found the courage to talk briefly with Osferth, though they discussed nothing more important than the weather, which the half-brothers evidently found agreeable. After a while I ordered the men to stop scrambling up the sail, which had to be laboriously refolded, but I had proved it would work as a means of climbing out of the fort’s moat. That would just leave the wall to cross, and those of us who did not die in the moat would almost certainly die on the ledge of land beneath the wall.

The steward brought me a small horn cup of mead. I took it and for some reason, as my hand closed on the cup, the bee sting, which I had thought long vanished, began to itch again. The swelling was entirely gone, but for a moment the itching was back and I stared at my hand. I did not move, I just stared, and Osferth became worried. “What is it, lord?”

“Get me Father Heahberht,” I said and, when the priest arrived, I asked him who made the mead.

“He’s a strange man, lord,” Heahberht said.

“I don’t care if he’s got a tail and tits, just take me to him.”

The sails and spars were loaded on the wagon and escorted back to the old fort, but I took a half-dozen men and rode with Heahberht to a village he called Hocheleia. It looked a peaceful and half-forgotten place, just a straggle of cottages surrounded by big willow trees. There was a small church, marked by a wooden cross nailed to the eave. “Skade didn’t burn this church?” I asked Father Heahberht.

“Thorstein protected these folk, lord,” Heahberht told me.

“But he didn’t protect Thunresleam?”

“These are Thorstein’s people, lord. They belong to him. They work his land.”

“So who’s the Lord of Thunresleam?”

“Whoever is in the fort,” he said bitterly. “This way, lord.” He led me past a duck pond and into a thicket of bushes where a small cottage, thatched so deep that it looked more like a pile of straw than a dwelling, stood in the trees’ shadows. “The man is called Brun, lord.”

“Brun?”

“Just Brun. Some say he’s mad, lord.”

Brun crawled from his cottage. He had to crawl to get beneath the thatch’s edge. He half stood, saw my mail coat and golden arm rings, and fell back to his knees and scrabbled with dirt-crusted hands in the earth. He mumbled something I did not hear. A woman then emerged from beneath the thatch and knelt beside Brun and the two of them made whimpering noises as they bobbed their heads. Their hair was long, matted and tangled. Father Heahberht told them what we wanted and Brun grunted something, then abruptly stood. He was a tiny man, no taller than the dwarves that are said to live underground. His hair was so thick that I could not see his eyes. He pulled his woman to her feet, and she was no taller than him and certainly no prettier, then the pair of them gabbled at Heahberht, but their speech was so garbled that I could hardly understand a word. “He says we must go to the back of the house,” Heahberht said.

“You can understand them?”

“Well enough, lord.”

I left my escort in the lane, tied our two horses to a hornbeam, then followed the diminutive couple through thick weeds to where, half hidden by grass, was what I sought. Rows of hives. Bees were busy in the warm air, but they ignored us, going to and from the cone-shaped hives that appeared to be fashioned from baked mud. Brun, a sudden fondness in his voice, was stroking one hive. “He says the bees talk to him, lord,” Heahberht told me, “and he talks back.”

Bees crawled up Brun’s bare arms and he muttered to them. “What do they tell him?” I asked.

“What happens in the world, lord. And he tells them he’s sorry.”

“For the world’s happenings?”

“Because to get the honey for the mead, lord, he must break the hives open, and then the bees die. He buries them, he says, and says prayers over their graves.”

Brun was crooning at his bees, singing like a mother to her infants. “I’ve only seen straw hives,” I said. “Maybe straw hives don’t need to be broken? Maybe the bees can live?”

Brun must have understood what I said for he turned angrily and spoke fast. “He doesn’t approve of skeps, lord,” Heahberht translated, speaking of the woven straw hives. “He makes his hives the old-fashioned way, out of plaited hazel twigs and cow dung. He says the honey is sweeter.”

“Tell him what I want,” I said, “and tell him I’ll pay well.”

And so the bargain was struck and I rode back to the old fort on the hill and thought there was a chance. Just a chance. Because the bees had spoken.

That night, and the following two nights, I sent men down the long hill to the new fort. I led them the first two nights, leaving the old fort after dark. Men carried the sails, which had been cut into two, then each half sewn to a pair of spars so that we had six wide rope ladders. When we attacked in earnest we would have to go into the creek, unfurl the six wide ladders, and lay them against the farther bank, then men would have to climb the latticed ropes carrying real ladders that must be laid against the wall.

But for three nights we just feigned attacks. We went close to the moat, we shouted and our archers, of whom we had just over a hundred, shot arrows at the Danes. They, in turn, shot arrows back and hurled spears that thumped into the mud. They also threw fire-brands to light the night and, when they saw we were not attempting to cross the moat, I heard men shouting orders to stop throwing the spears.

I learned the walls were well manned. Haesten had left a large garrison, so many that some Danes were not needed in the fort at all, but instead guarded the ships drawn up on Caninga’s shore.

I did not go down the hill on the third night. I let Steapa lead that feint while I watched from the high fort’s walls. Just after dark my men brought a wagon from Hocheleia and in it were eight hives. Brun had told us that the best time to seal a hive was at dusk, and that evening he had closed up the entrances with plugs of mud mixed with cow dung that now slowly hardened. I put my ear next to one hive and heard a strange humming vibration.

“The bees will live till tomorrow night?” Edward asked me.

“They don’t have to,” I said, “because we’re attacking in tomorrow’s dawn.”

“Tomorrow!” he said, unable to hide his surprise, which pleased me. By making feint attacks during the early darkness I wanted to persuade the Danes that we would be launching our real attack shortly after dusk. Instead I would go at them at daybreak next morning, but I hoped that Skade and her men were already convinced, like Edward, that I planned an attack at nightfall.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, “and we leave tonight, in the dark.”

“Tonight?” Edward asked, still astonished.

“Tonight.”

He made the sign of the cross. Æthelflæd who, with Steapa, was the only other person I had told of my plans, came to stand beside me and put her hand through my arm. Edward seemed to shiver at the sight of our affection, then forced a smile. “Pray for me, sister,” he said.

“I always have,” she replied.

She looked at him steadily and he met her gaze for an instant, then looked at me. He started to speak, but nervousness made the first word an incoherent croak. He tried again. “You would not give me your oath, Lord Uhtred,” he said.

“No, lord.”

“But my sister has it?”

Æthelflæd’s arm tightened on mine. “She has my sworn loyalty, lord,” I said.

“Then I have no need of your oath,” Edward said with a smile.

That was generous of him and I bowed in acknowledgment. “You don’t need my oath, lord,” I said, “but your men need your encouragement tonight. Speak to them. Inspire them.”

There would be little sleep that night. It took men time to prepare for battle. It was a time of fear, a time when the imagination makes the enemy seem ever more fearsome. Some men, a few, fled the fort and sought shelter in the woods, but they were very few. The rest sharpened swords and axes. I would not let men feed the fires, because I did not want the Danes to see anything different about this night, and so most weapons were honed in the dark. Men pulled on boots, mail, and helmets. They made poor jokes. Some just sat with bowed heads, but they listened when Edward spoke to them. He went from group to group and I remembered how uninspiring his father’s first speech had been before the great victory at Ethandun. Edward was not much better, but he had an earnestness that was convincing, and men murmured approval when he promised that he would be the first man in the attack.

“You must keep him alive,” Father Coenwulf told me sternly.

“Isn’t that the responsibility of your god?” I asked.

“His father will never forgive you if Edward dies.”

“He has another son,” I said flippantly.

“Edward is a good man,” Coenwulf said angrily, “and he’ll make a good king.”

I agreed with that. I had not thought so before, but I had begun to like Edward. He had a willingness about him, and I did not doubt he would prove brave. He feared, of course, like all men fear, but he had kept those fears behind the fence of his teeth. He was determined to prove himself an heir, and that meant going to the place of death. He had not balked at that idea, and for that I respected him. “He’ll make a good king,” I told Coenwulf, “if he proves himself. And you know he must prove himself.”

The priest paused, then nodded. “But look after him,” he pleaded.

“I’ve told Steapa to look after him,” I told Coenwulf, “and I can’t do better than that.”

Father Pyrlig, dressed in his rusted mail, a sword at his waist and with an ax and a shield slung from his shoulders, came from the dark. “My men are ready,” he said. I had given him thirty men whose job was to carry the hives down the dark hill and across the moat.

I looked eastward. There was no sign of any new light there, but I sensed the short night was coming to its close. I touched Thor’s hammer. “Time to go,” I said.

Steapa’s men were making a racket at the hill’s foot, a noise to distract the Danes as hundreds of men now left the fort and, in the clouded darkness, went down the steep slope. In front were Edward’s men carrying the ladders. I saw the torches flaring at the moat’s edge and the flicker of arrow feathers whipping up toward the ramparts. The air smelled of salt and shellfish. I thought of Æthelflæd’s farewell kiss, of her sudden and impetuous embrace, and the fears surged in me. It sounded simple. Cross a moat, place the ladders on the small muddy ledge between moat and wall, climb the ladders. Die.

There was no order to our advance. Men found their own way down the hill and their leaders called softly to assemble them where the charred ruins of the village offered some small concealment. We were close enough to hear the Danes jeering as Steapa’s men with drew. The torches that had been thrown to illuminate the ditch smoldered low. Now, I hoped, the Danes would stand down. Men would go to their beds and to their women, while we waited in the dark where we touched our weapons and our amulets and listened to the ripple of water as the tide drained from the wide marshes. Weohstan was out in the tussocked swamps and I had ordered him to display his men to the fort’s west in hope that some defenders would be drawn that way. I had two hundred other men to the east, ready to attack the beached ships at the creek’s farther end. Those men were commanded by Finan. I did not like losing Finan as my shield-neighbor, but I needed a warrior to seal the Danish escape, and there was no man so fierce in battle, nor so clearheaded, as the Irishman.

But neither Weohstan nor Finan could show themselves till dawn. Nothing could happen till dawn. There was a slight drizzle coming cold on a west wind. Priests were praying. Osferth’s men, carrying the furled sails, crouched among tall nettles at the edge of the village, just a hundred paces from the moat’s nearer bank. I waited with Osferth, a yard or so in front of Edward who spoke not a word, but just clutched the golden cross that hung at his neck. Steapa had found us and waited with the Ætheling. My helmet was cold on my ears and neck, and my mail coat felt clammy.

I heard Danes speaking. They had sent men to collect the spears after each of our feint attacks, and I supposed that was what they were now doing in the small light of the dying torches. Then I saw them, just shadows in shadows, and I knew the dawn was almost upon us as the gray light of death spread behind us like a stain on the world’s rim. I turned to Edward. “Now, lord,” I said to him.

He stood, a young man at battle’s edge. For a heartbeat he could not find his voice, then he drew his long sword. “For God and for Wessex,” he shouted, “come with me!”

And so the fight for Beamfleot began.