The Empty Throne (The Warrior Chronicles, Book 8) (39 page)

‘That money was given to me.’ He took a pace forward, his blade rising, but I did not react to the threat and he stepped back again.

‘It was gold that should have been spent on men,’ I said, ‘on weapons, on palisades, and on shields.’ I stepped forward and gave him a back-handed cut that simply drove him away. I followed, sword raised, and by now he must have known that I was not hurting, that I was moving easily and quickly, though I sensed that I would tire fast. Serpent-Breath is a heavy sword. ‘You spent it on oil for your hair,’ I said, ‘and on baubles for your whores, on furs and on horses, on jewels and on silk. A man, Lord Eardwulf, dresses in leather and iron. And he fights.’ And with that I attacked him, and he parried, but he was so slow.

All my life I have practised with a sword. Almost from the time I could walk I have held a sword and learned its ways. I had been wary of Eardwulf at first, assuming that he would be faster than me and cunning in his sword-craft, but he knew little more than to cut and lunge and desperately block, and so I drove him back, pace by pace, and he watched my blade and I deliberately slowed my blows so that he could see them clearly and parry them, and I wanted him to see them because I did not want him to look behind. Nor did he, and when he reached the edge of the ditch I quickened my cuts, slapping him with the flat of Serpent-Breath’s blade so she did not wound, but just humiliated him, and I parried his feeble counter-attacks with thoughtless skill, and then I suddenly lunged and he went backwards and his feet slid on the ditch’s mud and he fell.

He landed on his back in the ditch’s water. It was not deep. I laughed at him then and stepped carefully down the slippery slope to stand at his feet. The onlookers, both Saxon and Norse, came to the ditch’s edge and looked down at us, and Eardwulf looked up and saw the warriors, the grim warriors, and such was his humiliation that I thought he would weep. ‘You are a traitor and an outlaw,’ I said, and I pointed Serpent-Breath at his belly and he raised Ice-Spite as if to strike at her, but instead I brought my sword arm back and then I cut. It was a massive cut given with all my remaining strength, and Serpent-Breath met Ice-Spite and it was Ice-Spite that broke. The famous blade broke in two just as I had wanted. A Saxon blade had broken Vlfberht’s best, and whatever evil Ice-Spite might have harboured, whatever sorcery was hidden in her steel, was gone.

Eardwulf struggled backwards, but I stopped him by thrusting Serpent-Breath at his belly. ‘You want me to cut you open?’ I asked, then raised my voice. ‘Prince Æthelstan!’ I called.

The boy scrambled down the ditch’s side and stood in the water. ‘Lord?’

‘Your verdict on this outlaw?’

‘Death, lord,’ he said in his unbroken voice.

‘Then deliver it,’ I said and gave him Serpent-Breath.

‘No!’ Eardwulf shouted.

‘Lord Uhtred!’ Æthelflaed called in a high voice.

‘My lady?’

‘He’s a boy,’ she said, frowning at Æthelstan.

‘He’s a boy who must learn to be a warrior and a king,’ I said, ‘and death is his destiny. He must learn to give it.’ I patted Æthelstan’s shoulder. ‘Make it quick, boy,’ I told him. ‘He deserves a slow death, but this is your first killing. Make it easy for yourself.’

I watched Æthelstan and saw the firmness on his young face. I watched as he moved the heavy sword to Eardwulf’s neck, and watched his small grimace as he rammed the blade down. A fierce spurt of blood landed on my mail. Æthelstan kept his eyes on Eardwulf’s face as he thrust a second time, and then he just leaned on Serpent-Breath’s hilt, keeping the blade in Eardwulf’s gullet, and the drab ditch water turned red, and Eardwulf thrashed for a time and there was a gurgling sound and more blood pulsed to swirl in the water, and still Æthelstan leaned on my sword until the thrashing stopped and the ripples subsided. I hugged the boy, then took his face between my hands to make him look at me. ‘That is justice, lord Prince,’ I said, ‘and you did well.’ I took Serpent-Breath from him. ‘Berg,’ I called, ‘you need a new sword! That one was no good.’

Sigtryggr held out a hand to pull me from the ditch. His one eye was bright with the same joy I had seen on Ceaster’s ramparts. ‘I would not want you as an enemy, Lord Uhtred,’ he said.

‘Then don’t come back, Jarl Sigtryggr,’ I said, clasping his forearm as he clasped mine.

‘I will be back,’ he said, ‘because you will want me to come back.’

‘I will?’

He turned his head to gaze at his ships. One ship was close to the shore, held there by a mooring line tied to a stake. The prow of the ship had a great dragon painted white and in the dragon’s claw was a red axe. The ship waited for Sigtryggr, but close to it, standing where the grass turned to the river bank’s mud, was Stiorra. Her maid, Hella, was already aboard the dragon-ship.

Æthelflaed had been watching Eardwulf’s death, but now saw Stiorra by the grounded ship. She frowned, not sure she understood what she saw. ‘Lord Uhtred?’

‘My lady?’

‘Your daughter,’ she began, but did not know what to say.

‘I will deal with my daughter,’ I said grimly. ‘Finan?’

My son and Finan were both staring at me, wondering what I would do. ‘Finan?’ I called.

‘Lord?’

‘Kill that scum,’ I jerked my head towards Eardwulf’s followers, then I took Sigtryggr by the elbow and walked him towards his ship. ‘Lord Uhtred!’ Æthelflaed called again, sharper this time.

I waved a dismissive hand, and otherwise ignored her. ‘I thought she disliked you,’ I said to Sigtryggr.

‘We meant you to think that.’

‘You don’t know her,’ I said.

‘You knew her mother when you met her?’

‘This is madness,’ I said.

‘And you are famous for your good sense, lord.’

Stiorra waited for us. She was tense. She stared at me defiantly and said nothing.

I felt a lump in my throat and a sting in my eyes. I told myself it was the small smoke drifting from the Norsemen’s abandoned campfires. ‘You’re a fool,’ I told her harshly.

‘I saw,’ she said simply, ‘and I was stricken.’

‘And so was he?’ I asked, and she just nodded. ‘And the last two nights,’ I asked, ‘after the feasting was over?’ I did not finish the question, but she answered it anyway by nodding again. ‘You are your mother’s daughter,’ I said, and I embraced her, holding her close. ‘But it is my choice whom you marry,’ I went on. I felt her stiffen in my arms, ‘And Lord Æthelhelm wants to marry you.’

I thought she was sobbing, but when I pulled back from the embrace I saw she was laughing. ‘Lord Æthelhelm?’ she asked.

‘You’ll be the richest widow in all Britain,’ I promised her.

She still held me, looking up into my face. She smiled, that same smile that had been her mother’s. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I swear on my life that I will accept the man you choose to be my husband.’

She knew me. She had seen my tears and knew they were not caused by smoke. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘You will be a peace cow,’ I said, ‘between me and the Norse. And you’re a fool. So am I. And your dowry,’ I spoke louder as I stepped back, ‘is Eardwulf’s money.’ I saw I had smeared her pale linen dress with Eardwulf’s blood. I looked at Sigtryggr. ‘I give her to you,’ I said, ‘so don’t disappoint me.’

Someone wise, I forget who, said we must leave our children to fate. Æthelflaed was angry with me, but I refused to listen to her protests. Instead I listened to the chanting of the Norsemen, the song of the oars, and saw their dragon-ships go downstream into the thinning mist that covered the Mærse.

Stiorra stared back at me. I thought she would wave, but she stayed still, and then she was gone.

‘We have a burh to finish,’ I told my men.

Wyrd bið ful
ā
ræd.

Æthelflaed did succeed her husband as the ruler of Mercia, though she was never proclaimed queen of that country. She was known as the Lady of the Mercians, and her achievements deserve to be better remembered in the long story of England’s making. The enmity between Æthelflaed and Æthelred is entirely fictional, as are the Witan’s deliberations that led to her appointment as ruler. There is no evidence that Æthelhelm, Edward’s father-in-law, attempted to remove Æthelstan from the succession, though the doubts about Æthelstan’s legitimacy are not fictional.

King Hywel existed and is known to this day as Hywel Dda, Hywel the Good. He was an extraordinary man, clever, ambitious and able, who, in many ways, achieved for Wales what Alfred hoped to achieve for England.

Sigtryggr also existed, and did attack Chester, and did lose an eye at some point in his storied career. I have probably brought that attack forward in time. The anglicised spelling of his name is Sihtric, but I have preferred the Norse spelling to avoid confusion with Uhtred’s faithful follower, Sihtric.

I am grateful to my good friend Thomas Keane, MD, for describing Uhtred’s miraculous recovery. Doctor Tom never claimed it was likely, but it is possible, and on a dark night with the wind behind you and a whisky inside? Who knows? Uhtred is always lucky, so it worked.

Uhtred’s son is also lucky in owning a sword made by the smith who marked the blade with the name or word:

Such swords existed, and a number remain, though it seems the blades were so valued that some fakes were made in the ninth and tenth centuries. A man would have to pay a vast sum for such a sword because the steel of a genuine Vlfberht blade was of a quality that would not be matched for a thousand years. Iron is brittle, but smiths had learned that by adding carbon they turned the iron into steel that would make a hard, sharp and flexible blade that was much less likely to shatter in combat. The usual way of adding the carbon was to burn bones in the smithy fire, but that was a hit-or-miss process and left impurities in the metal, yet, some time in the ninth century, someone discovered a way of liquefying the iron-carbon mix in a crucible and so produced ingots of superior steel. We do not know who that someone was, or where the steel was made. It seems to have been imported to northern Europe from either India or, perhaps, Persia, evidence of the long reach of the trade routes that also brought silk and other luxuries to Britain.

No place in Britain is more associated with the making of England than Brunanburh. It is, truly, the birthplace of England, and I have no doubt that some readers will object to my identification of Bromborough on the Wirral as the site of Brunanburh. We know Brunanburh existed, but there is no agreement and little certainty as to the exact location. There have been many suggestions, ranging from Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland to Axminster in Devon, but I am persuaded by the arguments of Michael Livingston’s scrupulous monograph
The Battle of Brunanburh, a Casebook
(Exeter University Press, 2011). The battle that is the subject of the casebook is not the fight described in this book, but the much more famous and decisive affair of 937. Indeed Brunanburh is the battle that, at long last, will complete Alfred’s dream and forge a united England, but that is another story.

Bernard Cornwell was born in London, raised in Essex and worked for the BBC for eleven years before meeting Judy, his American wife. Denied an American work permit, he wrote a novel instead and has been writing ever since. He and Judy divide their time between Cape Cod and Charleston, South Carolina.

www.bernardcornwell.net

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