The Forever Queen (47 page)

“Bloody liar,” Godwine whispered.

Edmund scowled, then shrugged. “It sticks in my throat to talk to this bastard, Godwine, but as you say, I do so desperately need Mercia.”

“Then order him to call out the fyrd in the name of Edmund Ironside, King of England. Mayhap somewhere along the line, after Cnut is dead and England has started to settle into a new prosperity, Eadric can meet with an accident. While out hunting, perhaps?” Godwine’s reference was pointed, referring to Alfhelm’s murder.

Edmund agreed, his face as passive as his friend’s. A sensible idea, but if it was sensible, why did he not like it?

There was one wholly unexpected advantage to welcoming Eadric back as a King’s Ealdorman, however. The Queen sent no more letters or messengers to Edmund about Edward and Alfred, beyond one curt missive: “I will not, under any circumstances, trust the life of my sons while that man is in your company. Be warned. Blood stains his hands.”

Edmund never expected to be grateful to Eadric Streona for something.

17 October 1016—Ashingdon, Essex

As Emma had warned, there was reason not to trust Eadric Streona, but Edmund needed him now that the Danes had once again found the audacity to enter the Thames estuary. This ring-around of to-and-fro advance and retreat had to be ended. Cnut had to be stopped with a final confrontation, but so much depended on a concerted, united effort, and with men like Streona at his back, Edmund could not feel easy with that dependence. All the same, he could not allow Cnut to entrench himself somewhere, well supplied, for the winter. He would have preferred to have more proof of Eadric’s new-found sense of regret, but then what higher proof could the man give than to fight in battle for his acknowledged King?

With misgivings, that same King sent out the war call, and, to his relief, southern England responded to the mournful booming of the war horns, Eadric, with typical effrontery, informing anyone who cared to listen that the fyrds had rallied because of his expression of faith in Edmund. On hearing the boasting for himself, Edmund, tactfully, had made no comment. Godwine, not so level-tempered and coming very close to connecting his fist with Eadric’s mouth, consoled himself by telling himself that he could do whatever he wanted to the cursed man later. After Ashingdon.

It was as good a place as any to fight a last battle. Ashingdon was nothing more than a hamlet of two farmsteadings, three peasant bothies, and a chapel. Beyond the settlement a long, low hill projected into the flat country between the Rivers Crouch and Thames. Although Edmund had not taken Cnut by surprise—the Dane had become too wary for that—he had managed to come up on him quicker than expected. The English numbers were impressive, and they had among them a leader who knew all there was to know about tactics: Ulfkell of East Anglia. Men anxious to repair loss of face had also responded to Edmund’s call, among them the man branded as coward, Ælfric of Hamp-Shire, although his presence was, as ever, questionable. There were more than a few men sitting around the campfires that star-bright night, laying wagers on how soon Ælfric’s stomach sickness would recur and take him running to squat, groaning, beneath the hedgerows. Edmund had wisely countered any doubt by ensuring that the man fought in the King’s wing and that his men were under the King’s command, not their Ealdorman’s. If Ælfric wanted to spend the day puking somewhere, then let him. Edmund needed the men of his fyrd, not him.

The enemy camp was in full view, no more than one and a half miles away, towards the next, larger settlement of Canewden, their distant fires looking like a meadow scattered with clumps of white daisies. If it were not for their own noise, Danish voices could have been heard across the quiet waiting of the tense, breath-held darkness.

Sharing his meagre supper of mutton stew with his Ealdormen, Godwine, the Bishop of Dorchester-on-Thames, and the Abbot of Ramsey Abbey, Edmund forced himself to be pleasant in manner and conversation with the two men whom he doubted, Eadric and Ælfric.

“He will not run in the darkness, do you think?” Ælfric asked, referring to Cnut, gathering his mantle tighter. He was starting to shiver, did not want anyone to assume his shaking was from fear.

“No, I am sorry to disappoint you; he will not be running,” Edmund answered, giving the Ealdorman a friendly, sympathetic pat on his shoulder.

“No, no, do not get me wrong,” the man answered quickly. Too quickly. “I am eager for a fight, I just thought…”

“You just thought it would save your stomach a lot of bile if Cnut were to pack up camp and sail quietly away.” Eadric Streona’s comment was acerbic. “We well know your past history, Ælfric.”

Edmund could not hold in the retort that sprang to his mouth, did not even try. “But then you are not exactly clean and shining behind the ears yourself, are you, Eadric?”

“I have never run from a battlefield in my life!” Eadric protested vehemently. The fact he had only fought in minor skirmishes was tactfully not mentioned. It was not what Edmund had meant anyway, and Eadric well knew it. Edmund however, prudently did not pursue the matter. Here, now, was not the place to quarrel.

“Cnut is in a position where he will have to fight,” Ulfkell explained, ignoring the squalled flurry of tension as he stretched his long legs toward the crackling fire. “He is laden with spoil; if he were to attempt an escape by land, he would be obliged to leave behind all he has looted and abandon his ships. Alternatively, it would be foolhardy to attempt an embarkation with us so close; he could never put up an adequate defence. Therefore, on the morrow we fight.” For his part, Ulfkell was looking forward to the affray. On behalf of Thetford, he had his own score of honour to settle with these Danes.

“And on the morrow we win!” Godwine raised his ale tankard high, slopping some of it over the rim in his enthusiasm, the others cheerfully following suit. The Bishop of Dorchester endorsing the optimism with a loud “Amen” and forming the sign of the cross in the air, a gesture echoed by them all. He, like the Abbot and several other men of God, were not permitted to shed blood, but that did not stop them from entering a fight of a magnitude such as this. The clergy would stride into battle with their cassocks girded high and solid, wooden clubs tight-clasped in their hands. The damage such a weapon could do to a man’s skull was formidable.

Later, when the men had settled into their cloaks or dozed where they sat, Edmund found he could not sleep. He had not sought his bed until after midnight had passed, and dawn now would not be far away. His thoughts kept returning to his wife and son, to the child she would be birthing soon. When was it due? Mid-November? His first son was a bonny lad, with bright, interested eyes and a grip as firm as a mastiff’s jaws. Ædward. He prayed to God the three of them would be kept safe, had asked Godwine to ensure it, as he had asked Emma, too, but he doubted she would keep her word, not with her own Edward and Alfred to consider. He supposed he could not blame her.

He rolled onto his back, put his hands behind his head, and stared up into the darkness that was the low leather roof of his tent. What was it Ulfkell had said once, long ago, when Edmund was a child and he had asked him about combat? “It is a thing you do, boy, without thought or question, because it is a thing that has to be done. You go into battle knowing you have put an edge to cut the wind on your axe and sword, knowing you have done your best to learn how to use them, and knowing your comrades beside you, all those men to left and right, are as scared as you are.”

Edmund puffed his cheeks. There was something else Ulfkell had said, not when he had asked as a boy, but at Æthelred’s funeral, in that hour of waiting between his father’s burial and his own coronation. “Success, whether it be as a sovereign on a throne or a peasant farmer fighting in battle, is based on trust. You have to trust those next to you to do their best, in whatever it is you are expecting them to do. And to trust these other men, you must trust your own judgement.”

That was the rub. How to trust his own judgement? Edmund sighed, shut his eyes. There was one thing for certain: one of them, either Cnut or himself, tomorrow—no, today—would not be leaving Ashingdon alive, or at least would not be living long after it.

He must have dozed, for Godwine was shaking him awake. “Dawn, my Lord. The Danish camp is already astir.”

Edmund swung his legs from his cot, called for his mail hauberk.

18 October 1016—Ashingdon

Eadric Streona was appalled at what was happening in front of him and at his own stupidity. This was something he had not anticipated, had never imagined, not even when listening to the stories the harpers told. How in God’s name were they going to defeat so many? How in all the fires of Hell was any one of them going to emerge alive?

A slight rise on the Danish side of the field meant Cnut had managed to move forward without losing any of the advantage of the high ground. Edmund, taking the advice of Ulfkell, had deployed into three divisions: Wessex, under his own command, at the centre; Ulfkell’s East Anglians to the left flank; and Eadric on the right.

The sight of so many, rank upon rank of Danes standing facing him had churned Eadric’s stomach. The noise was dreadful, the shouting, the jeering, the clashing of spear or axe on shield—and no advance had yet been made; there was not yet any close fighting. What would it be like then, when the two armies met together? Streona’s palms felt sticky, the axe haft in his hand slippery; the felt padding beneath his mail was sodden and heavy from the sweat soaked up from his back. He regretted now mocking Ealdorman Ælfric’s fear. He looked to his left. Ælfric was standing thirty or so yards from Edmund, not in the forefront of things but near enough for Eadric to know he would be fighting, not merely observing. And he had done this before? Had faced this monstrous prospect? No wonder the man had previously feigned illness and refused to fight!

The sun was well risen; noon would be less than two hours away. Were they just going to stand here all day, shouting profanities at each other? God’s truth, Eadric hoped so! He damned, bloody hoped so!

Edmund half turned to his right and saluted the Ealdorman Ælfric. That is courage, he thought, to stand in line, waiting for the order to go, knowing your guts have been left in camp and there is nothing left to shit from your backside.

There would be reward for Ælfric when this was all over, Edmund decided. He looked up as a flock of geese skimmed overhead, their wings whistling in flight. A good omen? Bad? Enough of this! Someone had to get things started, and it did not look as if Cnut was eager to take the initiative.

Lifting his axe above his head, Edmund swung it three times in a circle. The war horns boomed into the saline-crisp air, and chaos was let loose.

“We must keep together,” Ulfkell had said last night, when they squatted beside the rough plan he had drawn in the hearth ashes. “It will do us no good to have one flank outpace the other.”

Enthusiasm? Eagerness? Or merely the easier curve of the terrain? Whatever cause, Ulfkell’s flank advanced quicker than the right, opening a gap that rapidly widened with every yard. Eadric, watching, holding his men at a steady walk, knew it would all go wrong.

“Walk!” Eadric yelled, holding his axe out to one side, shield to the other, as a barrier. “We will not spend our breath in the first few minutes; we will walk!”

Those ahead of him had not listened; they had gone, the fools, were up with Edmund and the centre, closing in on Cnut’s men, who were rushing forward. This was madness! Could Edmund not see it for himself? They were vastly outnumbered; Cnut had the advantage of the high ground—in the names of the saints, they would be massacred! Horrified, Eadric halted abruptly, the ranks of men behind bumping to a stop. He had never seriously fought, had never been one to listen to the advice or wisdom of those who knew more than he did. Nor was he the type of man to admit his own failings.

The gap between the right flank and the rest of the field had widened so much that, as the two armies clashed in a great uprush of sound, the entire third of Eadric’s command remained behind, uncommitted. He had said it was a fool plan, that it would be better to wait, choose a more suitable location. Eadric Streona had said, but had anyone listened? And here he was, being proved right! The Danes were too superior in strength; look at them! Look how their left is coming forward, turning inwards to envelop the rear of Edmund’s centre!

There was nothing he could do to help; the tactics had been flawed from the start. Was that his fault? He had to make a quick, practical solution; this battle had been badly commanded, badly led. Best to get his men out, serve their interests as well he may.

Convinced, Eadric fled the field, taking the entire right flank with him. The remainder of them died; those who had not turned tail to run. With the right flank gone, the rest stood as much chance as a field of corn surviving the reaper’s scythe.

Ælfric never felt the axe that took his head from his neck. Ulfkell fought on with a spear rammed through his thigh, agonisingly hanging there until he could find a moment to twist it out. Fifteen minutes later, a sword curving into his arm amputated it above the elbow and he bled to death on his feet, still fighting. The Bishop was killed, as well as the Abbot of Ramsey. Ramsey was responsible for the recording of the Chronicle. He was a man much loved by the monks, and they would see to it later that his death was honoured and the manner of its treacherous doing preserved in their careful, scripted writing.

So many of them dead or left to die. Ah, the glories of battle? Glory belonged only to the harpers’ songs, not to the reality of a battlefield.

Godwine, wounded, but able to stay on his feet, got Edmund away with the help of a small group of cnights. Such a small, bloodied, bewildered group. They half carried, half dragged their King, for he was unable to walk without aid. It had seemed such an innocent wound, one he barely noticed at first, but the sword had bitten deep into his groin, thrusting up into his guts and stomach. He fought for as long as he could, but the bleeding disabled him and he fell, useless, to the mud-bloodied grass. And then it was all over.