The Burning Land. Bernard Cornwell
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be north of the river with the Mercians. We’ll be on a hill protected by earthworks. Harald’s men will cross the ford to attack us, and you will attack their rear. When you do that we attack their vanguard.’
‘Simple?’ Steapa echoed with a trace of amusement.
‘We crush them between us,’ I said.
‘With God’s help,’ Edward said firmly.
‘Even without that,’ I snarled.
Edward questioned me for the better part of an hour, right until the bell summoned him to prayers. He was like his father. He wanted to understand everything and have everything arranged in neat lists, but this was war and war was never neat. I believed Harald would follow me, and I trusted Steapa to bring the greater part of Alfred’s army behind Harald, but I could give Edward no promises. He wanted certainty, but I was planning battle, and I was relieved when he went to pray with his father.
Steapa left me and I stood alone on the rampart. Sentries gave me room, somehow aware of my baleful mood, and when I heard footsteps I ignored them, hoping that whoever it was would go away and leave me in peace.
‘The Lord Uhtred,’ a gently mocking voice said when the steps paused behind me.
‘The Lady Æthelflæd,’ I said, not turning to look at her.
She came and stood beside me, her cloak touching mine. ‘How is Gisela?’
I touched Thor’s hammer at my neck. ‘About to give birth again.’
‘The fourth child?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and shot a prayer towards the house of the gods that Gisela would survive the birth. ‘How is Ælfwynn?’ I asked. Ælfwynn was Æthelflæd’s daughter, still an infant.
‘She thrives.’
‘An only child?’
‘And going to stay that way,’ Æthelflæd said bitterly and I looked at her profile, so delicate in the moonlight. I had known her since she was a small child when she had been the happiest, most carefree of Alfred’s children, but now her face was guarded, as though she shrank from bad dreams. ‘My father’s angry with you,’ she said.
‘When is he not?’
She gave a hint of a smile, quickly gone. ‘He wants you to give an oath to Edward.’
‘I know.’
‘Then why won’t you?’
‘Because I’m not a slave to be handed on to a new master.’
‘Oh!’ she sounded sarcastic, ‘you’re not a woman?’
‘I’m taking my family north,’ I said.
‘If my father dies,’ Æthelflæd said, then hesitated. ‘When my father dies, what happens to Wessex?’
‘Edward rules.’
‘He needs you,’ she said. I shrugged. ‘As long as you live, Lord Uhtred,’ she went on, ‘the Danes hesitate to attack.’
‘Harald didn’t hesitate.’
‘Because he’s a fool,’ she said scornfully, ‘and tomorrow you’ll kill him.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said cautiously.
A murmur of voices made Æthelflæd turn to see men spilling from the church. ‘My husband,’ she said, investing those two words with loathing, ‘sent a message to Lord Aldhelm.’
‘Aldhelm leads the Mercian troops?’
Æthelflæd nodded. I knew Aldhelm. He was my cousin’s favourite and a man of unbounded ambition, sly and clever. ‘I hope your husband ordered Aldhelm to Fearnhamme,’ I said.
‘He did,’ Æthelflæd said, then lowered and quickened her voice, ‘but he also sent word that Aldhelm was to withdraw north if he thought the enemy too strong.’
I had half suspected that would happen. ‘So Aldhelm is to preserve Mercia’s army?’
‘How else can my husband take Wessex when my father dies?’ Æthelflæd asked in a voice of silken innocence. I glanced down at her, but she just gazed at the fires of Godelmingum.
‘Will Aldhelm fight?’ I asked her.
‘Not if it means weakening Mercia’s army,’ she said.
‘Then tomorrow I shall have to persuade Aldhelm to his duty.’
‘But you have no authority over him,’ Æthelflæd said.
I patted Serpent-Breath’s hilt. ‘I have this.’
‘And he has five hundred men,’ Æthelflæd said. ‘But there is one person he will obey.’
‘You?’
‘So tomorrow I ride with you,’ she said.
‘Your husband will forbid it,’ I answered.
‘Of course he will,’ she said calmly, ‘but my husband won’t know. And you will do me a service, Lord Uhtred.’
‘I am ever at your service, my lady,’ I said, too lightly.
‘Are you?’ she asked, turning to look up into my eyes.
I looked at her sad lovely face, and knew her question was serious. ‘Yes, my lady,’ I said gently.
‘Then tomorrow,’ she said bitterly, ‘kill them all. Kill all the Danes. Do that for me, Lord Uhtred,’ she touched my hand with the tips of her fingers, ‘kill them all.’
She had loved a Dane and she had lost him to a blade, and now she would kill them all.
There are three spinners at the root of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, and they weave our threads, and those spinners had made a skein of purest gold for Æthelflæd’s life, but in those years they wove that bright thread into a much darker cloth. The three spinners see our future. The gift of the gods to humankind is that we cannot see where the threads will go.
I heard songs from the Danes camped across the river.
And tomorrow I would draw them to the old hill by the river. And there kill them.
Next day was a Thursday, Thor’s Day, which I took as a good omen. Alfred had once proposed renaming the days of the week, suggesting the Thursday became Maryday, or perhaps it was Haligastday, but the idea had faded like dew under the summer sun. In Christian Wessex, whether its king liked it or not, Tyr, Odin, Thor and Frigg were still remembered each week.
And on that Thor’s Day I was taking two hundred warriors to Fearnhamme, though more than six hundred horsemen gathered in the burh’s long street before the sun rose. There was the usual chaos. Stirrup leathers broke and men tried to find replacements, children darted between the big horses, swords were given a last sharpening, the smoke of cooking fires drifted between the houses like fog, the church bell clanged, monks chanted, and I stood on the ramparts and watched the river’s far bank.
The Danes who had crossed to our bank the previous day had gone back before nightfall. I could see smoke from their fires rising among the trees, but the only visible enemy was a pair of sentries crouching at the river’s edge. For a moment I was tempted to abandon everything I had planned and instead lead the six hundred men across the river and let them rampage through Harald’s camp, but it was only a fleeting temptation. I assumed most of his men were in Godelmingum, and they would be well awake by the time we reached them. A swirling battle might result, but the Danes would inevitably realise their advantage in numbers and grind us to bloody shreds. I wanted to keep my promise to Æthelflæd. I wanted to kill them all.
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