The Last Kingdom Series Books 1–8: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North, Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings, The Pagan Lord, The Empty Throne. Bernard Cornwell
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out of the hole in the turf roof.
They were all crouched about the small fire and I joined them, stretching my hands to the flames. ‘Two thousand men,’ I said, ‘more or less.’
No one answered.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ I asked, and looked around the faces.
There were five faces. Only five.
‘Where’s the king?’ I asked.
‘He went,’ Adelbert said helplessly.
‘He did what?’
‘He went to the town,’ the priest said. He was wearing Alfred’s rich blue cloak and I assumed Alfred had taken Adelbert’s plain garment.
I stared at him. ‘You let him go?’
‘He insisted,’ Egwine said.
‘How could we stop him?’ Adelbert pleaded. ‘He’s the king!’
‘You hit the bastard, of course,’ I snarled. ‘You hold him down till the madness passes. When did he go?’
‘Just after you left,’ the priest said miserably, ‘and he took my harp,’ he added.
‘And when did he say he’d be back?’
‘By nightfall.’
‘It is nightfall,’ I said. I stood and stamped out the fire. ‘You want the Danes to come and investigate the smoke?’ I doubted the Danes would come, but I wanted the damned fools to suffer. ‘You,’ I pointed to one of the four soldiers, ‘rub my horse down. Feed it.’
I went back to the door. The first stars were bright and the snow glinted under a sickle moon.
‘Where are you going?’ Adelbert had followed me.
‘To find the king, of course.’
If he lived. And if he did not, then Iseult was dead.
I had to beat on Cippanhamm’s western gate, provoking a disgruntled voice from the far side demanding to know who I was.
‘Why aren’t you up on the ramparts?’ I asked in return.
The bar was lifted and the gate opened a few inches. A face peered out, then vanished as I pushed the gate hard inwards, banging it against the suspicious guard. ‘My horse went lame,’ I said, ‘and I’ve walked here.’
He recovered his balance and pushed the gate shut. ‘Who are you?’ he asked again.
‘Messenger from Svein.’
‘Svein!’ He lifted the bar and dropped it into place. ‘Has he caught Alfred yet?’
‘I’ll tell Guthrum that news before I tell you.’
‘Just asking,’ he said.
‘Where is Guthrum?’ I asked. I had no intention of going anywhere near the Danish chieftain for, after my insults to his dead mother, the best I could hope for was a swift death, and the likelihood was a very slow one.
‘He’s in Alfred’s hall,’ the man said, and pointed south. ‘That side of town, so you’ve still farther to walk.’ It never occurred to him that any messenger from Svein would never ride alone through Wessex, that such a man would come with an escort of fifty or sixty men, but he was too cold to think, and besides, with my long hair and my thick arm rings I looked like a Dane. He retreated into the house beside the gate where his comrades were clustered around a hearth and I walked on into a town made strange. Houses were missing, burned in the first fury of the Danish assault, and the large church by the market place on the hilltop was nothing but blackened beams touched white by the snow. The streets were frozen mud, and only I moved there, for the cold was keeping the Danes in the remaining houses. I could hear singing and laughter. Light leaked past shutters or glowed through smoke-holes in low roofs. I was cold and I was angry. There were men here who could recognise me, and men who might recognise Alfred, and his stupidity had put us both in danger. Would he have been mad enough to go back to his own hall? He must have guessed that was where Guthrum would be living and he would surely not risk being recognised by the Danish leader, which suggested he would be in the town rather than the royal compound.
I was walking towards Eanflæd’s old tavern when I heard the roars. They were coming from the east side of town and I followed the sound which led me to the nunnery by the river wall. I had never been inside the convent, but the gate was open and the courtyard inside was lit by two vast fires which offered some warmth to the men nearest the flames. And there were at least a hundred men in the courtyard, bellowing encouragement and insults at two other men who were fighting in the mud and melted snow between the fires. They were fighting with swords and shields, and every clash of blade against blade or of blade against wood brought raucous shouts. I glanced briefly at the fighters, then searched for faces in the crowd. I was looking for Haesten, or anyone else who might recognise me, but I saw no one, though it was hard to distinguish faces in the flickering shadows. There was no sign of any nuns and I assumed they had either fled, were dead or had been taken away for the conquerors’ amusement.
I slunk along the courtyard wall. I was wearing my helmet and its face-plate was an adequate disguise, but some men threw me curious glances, for it was unusual to see a helmeted man off a battlefield. In the end, seeing no one I recognised, I took the helmet off and hung it from my belt. The nunnery church had been turned into a feasting hall, but there was only a handful of drunks inside, oblivious to the noise outside. I stole half a loaf of bread from one of the drunks and took it back outside and watched the fighting.
Steapa Snotor was one of the two men. He no longer wore his mail armour, but was in a leather coat and he fought with a small shield and a long sword, but around his waist was a chain that led to the courtyard’s northern side where two men held it and, whenever Steapa’s opponent seemed to be in danger, they yanked on the chain to pull the huge Saxon off balance. He was being made to fight as Haesten had been fighting when I first discovered him, and doubtless Steapa’s captors were making good money from fools who wanted to try their prowess against a captured warrior. Steapa’s current opponent was a thin, grinning Dane who tried to dance around the huge man and slide his sword beneath the small shield, doing what I had done when I had fought Steapa, but Steapa was doggedly defending himself, parrying each blow and, when the chain allowed him, counterattacking fast. Whenever the Danes jerked him backwards the crowd jeered and once, when the men yanked the chain too hard and Steapa turned on them, only to be faced by three long spears, the crowd gave him a great cheer. He whipped back to parry the next attack, then stepped backwards, almost to the spear points, and the thin man followed fast, thinking he had Steapa at a disadvantage, but Steapa suddenly checked, slammed the shield down onto his opponent’s blade and brought his left hand around, sword hilt foremost, to hit the man on the head. The Dane went down, Steapa reversed the sword to stab and the chain dragged him off his feet and the spears threatened him with death if he finished the job. The crowd liked it. He had won.
Money changed hands. Steapa sat by the fire, his grim face showing nothing, and one of the men holding the chain shouted for another opponent. ‘Ten pieces of silver if you wound him! Fifty if you kill him!’
Steapa, who probably did not understand a word, just stared at the crowd, daring another man to take him on, and sure enough a half drunken brute came grinning from the crowd. Bets were made as Steapa was prodded to his feet. It was like a bull-baiting, except Steapa was being given only one opponent at a time. They would doubtless have set three or four men on him, except that the Danes who had taken him prisoner did not want him dead so long as there were still fools willing to pay to fight him.
I was sidling around the courtyard’s edge, still looking at faces. ‘Six pennies?’ a voice said behind me and I turned to see a man grinning beside a door. It was one of a dozen similar doors, evenly spaced along the limewashed wall.
‘Six pennies?’ I asked, puzzled.
‘Cheap,’ he said, and he pushed back a small shutter on the door and invited me to look inside.
I