The Last Kingdom. Bernard Cornwell
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must attack,’ he told both Osbert and Ælla, ‘before the new boats come.’
Ælla, of course, agreed enthusiastically, and even Osbert understood that the new ships meant that everything was changed. Besides, the Danes inside the city had been having problems with their new wall. We woke one morning to see a whole new stretch of palisade, the wood raw and bright, but a great wind blew that day and the new work collapsed, and that caused much merriment in our encampments. The Danes, men said, could not even build a wall. ‘But they can build ships,’ Father Beocca told me.
‘So?’
‘A man who can build a ship,’ the young priest said, ‘can usually build a wall. It is not so hard as shipbuilding.’
‘It fell down!’
‘Perhaps it was meant to fall down,’ Beocca said, and, when I just stared at him, he explained. ‘Perhaps they want us to attack there?’
I do not know if he told my father of his suspicions, but if he did then I have no doubt my father dismissed them. He did not trust Beocca’s opinions on war. The priest’s usefulness was in encouraging God to smite the Danes and that was all and, to be fair, Beocca did pray mightily and long that God would give us the victory.
And the day after the wall collapsed we gave God his chance to fulfil Beocca’s prayers.
We attacked.
I do not know if every man who assaulted Eoferwic was drunk, but they would have been had there been enough mead, ale and birch wine to go round. The drinking had gone on much of the night and I woke to find men vomiting in the dawn. Those few who, like my father, possessed mail shirts pulled them on. Most were armoured in leather, while some men had no protection other than their coats. Weapons were sharpened on whetstones. The priests walked round the camp scattering blessings, while men swore oaths of brotherhood and loyalty. Some banded together and promised to share their plunder equally, a few looked pale and more than a handful sneaked away through the dykes that crossed the flat, damp landscape.
A score of men were ordered to stay at the camp and guard the women and horses, though Father Beocca and I were both ordered to mount. ‘You’ll stay on horseback,’ my father told me, ‘and you’ll stay with him,’ he added to the priest.
‘Of course, my lord,’ Beocca said.
‘If anything happens,’ my father was deliberately vague, ‘then ride to Bebbanburg, shut the gate and wait there.’
‘God is on our side,’ Beocca said.
My father looked a great warrior, which indeed he was, though he claimed to be getting too old for fighting. His greying beard jutted over his mail coat, above which he had hung a crucifix carved from ox bone that had been a gift from Gytha. His sword belt was leather studded with silver, while his great sword, Bone-Breaker, was sheathed in leather banded with gilt-bronze strappings. His boots had iron plates on either side of the ankles, reminding me of his advice about the shield wall, while his helmet was polished so that it shone, and its face-piece, with its eyeholes and snarling mouth, was inlaid with silver. His round shield was made of limewood, had a heavy iron boss, was covered in leather and painted with the wolf’s head. Ealdorman Uhtred was going to war.
The horns summoned the army. There was little order in the array. There had been arguments about who should be on the right or left, but Beocca told me the argument had been settled when the bishop cast dice, and King Osbert was now on the right, Ælla on the left and my father in the centre, and those three chieftains’ banners were advanced as the horns called. The men assembled under the banners. My father’s household troops, his best warriors, were at the front, and behind them were the bands of the thegns. Thegns were important men, holders of great lands, some of them with their own fortresses, and they were the men who shared my father’s platform in the feasting hall, and men who had to be watched in case their ambitions made them try to take his place, but now they loyally gathered behind him, and the ceorls, free men of the lowest rank, assembled with them. Men fought in family groups, or with friends. There were plenty of boys with the army, though I was the only one on horseback and the only one with a sword and helmet.
I could see a scatter of Danes behind the unbroken palisades on either side of the gap where their wall had fallen down, but most of their army filled that gap, making a shield barrier on top of the earthen wall, and it was a high earthen wall, at least ten or twelve feet high, and steep, so it would be a hard climb into the face of the waiting killers, but I was confident we would win. I was nine years old, almost ten.
The Danes were shouting at us, but we were too far away to hear their insults. Their shields, round like ours, were painted yellow, black, brown and blue. Our men began beating weapons on their shields and that was a fearsome sound, the first time I ever heard an army making that war music; the clashing of ash spear shafts and iron sword blades on shield-wood.
‘It is a terrible thing,’ Beocca said to me. ‘War, it is an awful thing.’
I said nothing. I thought it was glorious and wonderful.
‘The shield wall is where men die,’ Beocca said, and he kissed the wooden cross that hung about his neck. ‘The gates of heaven and hell will be jostling with souls before this day is done,’ he went on gloomily.
‘Aren’t the dead carried to a feasting hall?’ I asked.
He looked at me very strangely, then appeared shocked. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘At Bebbanburg,’ I said, sensible enough not to admit that it was Ealdwulf the smith who told me those tales as I watched him beating rods of iron into sword blades.
‘That is what heathens believe,’ Beocca said sternly. ‘They believe dead warriors are carried to Woden’s corpse-hall to feast until the world’s ending, but it is a grievously wrong belief. It is an error! But the Danes are always in error. They bow down to idols, they deny the true God, they are wrong.’
‘But a man must die with a sword in his hand?’ I insisted.
‘I can see we must teach you a proper catechism when this is done,’ the priest said sternly.
I said nothing more. I was watching, trying to fix every detail of that day in my memory. The sky was summer blue, with just a few clouds off in the west, and the sunlight reflected from our army’s spear points like glints of light flickering on the summer sea. Cowslips dotted the meadow where the army assembled, and a cuckoo called from the woods behind us where a crowd of our women were watching the army. There were swans on the river that was placid for there was little wind. The smoke from the cooking fires inside Eoferwic rose almost straight into the air, and that sight reminded me that there would be a feast in the city that night, a feast of roasted pork or whatever else we found in the enemy’s stores. Some of our men, those in the foremost ranks, were darting forward to shout at the enemy, or else dare him to come and do private battle between the lines, one man on one man, but none of the Danes broke rank. They just stared, waited, their spears a hedge, their shields a wall, and then our horns blew again and the shouting and the shield-banging faded as our army lurched forward.
It went raggedly. Later, much later, I was to understand the reluctance of men to launch themselves against a shield wall, let alone a shield wall held at the top of a steep earthen bank, but on that day I was just impatient for our army to hurry forward and break the impudent Danes, and Beocca had to restrain me, catching hold of my bridle to stop me riding into the rearmost ranks. ‘We shall wait until they break through,’ he said.
‘I want to kill a Dane,’ I protested.
‘Don’t be stupid, Uhtred,’ Beocca said angrily. ‘You try and kill a Dane,’ he went on, ‘and your father will have no sons. You are his only child now, and it is your duty to live.’
So I did my duty and I hung back, and I watched as, so slowly, our army found its courage and advanced towards the city. The river was on our left, the empty encampment behind our right, and the inviting gap in the city wall was to our front and there the Danes were waiting silently, their shields overlapping.
‘The