The Last Kingdom (36 page)

With Mildrith and my son. I touched Thor’s hammer and prayed they were alive.

And then, as the dark boats passed upstream, I slept.

In the morning we pulled
Heahengel
into the small harbor where she could rest on the mud when the tide fell. We were forty-eight men, tired but alive. The sky was ribbed with clouds, high and gray-pink, scudding before the storm’s dying wind,

We walked to Oxton through woods full of bluebells. Did I expect to find Mildrith there? I think I did, but of course she was not. There was only Oswald the steward and the slaves and none of them knew what was happening.

Leofric insisted on a day to dry clothes, sharpen weapons, and fill bellies, but I was in no mood to rest so I took two men, Cenwulf and Ida, and walked north toward Exanceaster, which lay on the far side of the Uisc. The river settlements were empty for the folk had heard of the Danes coming and had fled into the hills, and so we walked the higher paths and asked them what happened, but they knew nothing except that there were dragon ships in the river, and we could see those for ourselves. There was a storm-battered fleet drawn up on the riverbank beneath Exanceaster’s stone walls. There were more ships than I had suspected, suggesting that a good part of Guthrum’s fleet had survived by staying in the Poole when the storm struck, and a few of those ships were still arriving, their crews rowing up the narrow river. We counted hulls and reckoned there were close to ninety boats, which meant that almost half of Guthrum’s fleet had survived, and I tried to distinguish
Wind-Viper
’s hull among the others, but we were too far away.

Guthrum the Unlucky. How well he deserved that name, though in time he came close to earning a better, but for now he had been unfortunate indeed. He had broken out of Werham, had doubtless hoped to resupply his army in Exanceaster and then strike north, but the gods of sea and wind had struck him down and he was left with a crippled army. Yet it was still a strong army and, for the moment, safe behind Exanceaster’s Roman walls.

I wanted to cross the river, but there were too many Danes by their ships, so we walked farther north and saw armed men on the road that led west from Exanceaster, a road that crossed the bridge beneath the city and led over the moors toward Cornwalum, and I stared a long time at those men, fearing they might be Danes, but they were staring east, suggesting that they watched the Danes and I guessed they were English and so we went down from the woods, shields slung on our backs to show we meant no harm.

There were eighteen men, led by a thegn named Withgil who had been the commander of Exanceaster’s garrison and who had lost most of his men when Guthrum attacked. He was reluctant to tell the story, but it was plain that he had expected no trouble and had posted only a few guards on the eastern gate, and when they had seen the approaching horsemen the guards had thought they were English and so the Danes had been able to capture the gate and then pierce the town. Withgil claimed to have made a fight at the fort in the town’s center, but it was obvious from his men’s embarrassment that it had been a pathetic resistance, if it amounted to any resistance at all, and the probable truth was that Withgil had simply run away.

“Was Odda there?” I asked.

“Ealdorman Odda?” Withgil asked. “ Of course not.”

“Where was he?”

Withgil frowned at me as if I had just come from the moon. “In the north, of course.”

“The north of Defnascir?”

“He marched a week ago. He led the fyrd.”

“Against Ubba?”

“That’s what the king ordered,” Withgil said.

“So where’s Ubba?” I demanded.

It seemed that Ubba had brought his ships across the wide Sæfern sea and had landed far to the west in Defnascir. He had traveled before the storm struck, which suggested his army was intact, and Odda had been ordered north to block Ubba’s advance into the rest of Wessex, and if Odda had marched a week ago then surely Odda the Younger would know that and would have ridden to join his father. Which suggested that Mildrith was there, wherever there was. I asked Withgil if he had seen Odda the Younger, but he said he had neither seen nor heard of him since Christmas.

“How many men does Ubba have?” I asked.

“Many,” Withgil said, which was not helpful, but all he knew.

“Lord.” Cenwulf touched my arm and pointed east and I saw horsemen appearing on the low fields that stretched from the river toward the hill on which Exanceaster is built. A lot of horsemen, and behind them came a standard bearer and, though we were too far away to see the badge on the flag, the green and white proclaimed that it was the West Saxon banner. So Alfred had come here? It seemed likely, but I was in no mind to cross the river and find out. I was only interested in searching for Mildrith.

War is fought in mystery. The truth can take days to travel, and ahead of truth flies rumor, and it is ever hard to know what is really happening, and the art of it is to pluck the clean bone of fact from the rotting flesh of fear and lies.

So what did I know? That Guthrum had broken the truce and had taken Exanceaster, and that Ubba was in the north of Defnascir. Which suggested that the Danes were trying to do what they had failed to do the previous year, split the West Saxon forces, and while Alfred faced one army the other would ravage the land or, perhaps, descend on Alfred’s rear, and to prevent that the fyrd of Defnascir had been ordered to block Ubba. Had that battle been fought? Was Odda alive? Was his son alive? Were Mildrith and my son alive? In any clash between Ubba and Odda I would have reckoned on Ubba. He was a great warrior, a man of legend among the Danes, and Odda was a fussy, worried, graying, and aging man.

“We go north,” I told Leofric when we were back at Oxton. I had no wish to see Alfred. He would be besieging Guthrum, and if I walked into his camp he would doubtless order me to join the troops ringing the city and I would sit there, wait, and worry. Better to go north and find Ubba.

So the next morning, under a spring sun, the
Heahengel
’s crew marched north.

The war was between the Danes and Wessex. My war was with Odda the Younger, and I knew I was driven by pride. The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation and the Danes understood that. Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.

What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness, and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things? Show me a humble warrior and I will see a corpse. Alfred preached humility, he even pretended to it, loving to appear in church with bare feet and prostrating himself before the altar, but he never possessed true humility. He was proud, and men feared him because of it, and men should fear a lord. They should fear his displeasure and fear that his generosity will cease. Reputation makes fear, and pride protects reputation, and I marched north because my pride was endangered. My woman and child had been taken from me, and I would take them back, and if they had been harmed then I would take my revenge and the stink of that man’s blood would make other men fear me. Wessex could fall for all I cared, my reputation was more important and so we marched, skirting Exanceaster, following a twisting cattle track into the hills until we reached Twyfyrde, a small place crammed with refugees from Exanceaster, and none of them had seen or heard news of Odda the Younger, nor had they heard of any battle to the north, though a priest claimed that lightning had struck thrice in the previous night, which he swore was a sign that God had struck down the pagans.

From Twyfyrde we took paths that edged the great moor, walking through country that was deep-wooded, hilly, and lovely. We would have made better time if we had possessed horses, but we had none, and the few we saw were old and sick and there were never enough for all our men, so we walked, sleeping that night in a deep combe bright with blossom and sifted with bluebells, and a nightingale sang us to sleep and the dawn chorus woke us and we walked on beneath the white mayflower, and that afternoon we came to the hills above the northern shore and we met folk who had fled the coastal lands, bringing with them their families and livestock, and their presence told us we must soon see the Danes.

I did not know it but the three spinners were making my fate. They were thickening the threads, twisting them tighter, making me into what I am, but staring down from that high hill I only felt a flicker of fear, for there was Ubba’s fleet, rowing east, keeping pace with the horsemen and infantry who marched along the shore.

The folk who had fled their homes told us that the Danes had come from the Welsh lands across the wide Sæfern sea, and that they had landed at a place called Beardastopol, which lies far in Defnascir’s west, and there they had collected horses and supplies, but then their attack eastward into the West Saxon heartland had been delayed by the great storm that had wrecked Guthrum’s fleet. Ubba’s ships had stayed in Beardastopol’s harbor until the storm passed and then, inexplicably, they had still waited even when the weather improved and I guessed that Ubba, who would do nothing without the consent of the gods, had cast the runesticks, found them unfavorable, and so waited until the auguries were better. Now the runes must have been good for Ubba’s army was on the move. I counted thirty-six ships, which suggested an army of at least twelve or thirteen hundred men.

“Where are they going?” One of my men asked.

“East,” I grunted. What else could I say? East into Wessex. East into the rich heartland of England’s last kingdom. East to Wintanceaster or to any of the other plump towns where the churches, monasteries, and nunneries were brimming with treasure, east to where the plunder waited, east to where there was food and more horses, east to invite more Danes to come south across Mercia’s frontier, and Alfred would be forced to turn around and face them, and then Guthrum’s army would come from Exanceaster and the army of Wessex would be caught between two hosts of Danes, except that the fyrd of Defnascir was somewhere on this coast and it was their duty to stop Ubba’s men.

We walked east, passing from Defnascir into Sumorsæte, and shadowing the Danes by staying on the higher ground, and that night I watched as Ubba’s ships came inshore and the fires were lit in the Danish camp, and we lit our own fires deep in a wood and were marching again before dawn and thus got ahead of our enemies and by midday we could see the first West Saxon forces. They were horsemen, presumably sent to scout the enemy, and they were now retreating from the Danish threat, and we walked until the hills dropped away to where a river flowed into the Sæfern sea, and it was there that we discovered that Ealdorman Odda had decided to make his stand, in a fort built by the old people on a hill near the river.

The river was called the Pedredan and close to its mouth was a small place called Cantucton, and near Cantucton was the ancient earth-walled fort that the locals said was named Cynuit. It was old, that fort; Father Willibald said it was older than the Romans, that it had been old when the world was young, and the fort had been made by throwing up earth walls on a hilltop and digging a ditch outside the walls. Time had worked on those walls, wearing them down and making the ditch shallower, and grass had overgrown the ramparts, and on one side the wall had been plowed almost to nothing, plowed until it was a mere shadow on the turf, but it was a fortress and the place where Ealdorman Odda had taken his forces and where he would die if he could not defeat Ubba, whose ships were already showing in the river’s mouth.

I did not go straight to the fort, but stopped in the shelter of some trees and dressed for war. I became Ealdorman Uhtred in his battle glory. The slaves at Oxton had polished my mail coat with sand and I pulled it on, and over it I buckled a leather sword belt for Serpent-Breath and Wasp-Sting. I pulled on tall boots, put on the shining helmet, and picked up my iron-bossed shield and, when all the straps were tight and the buckles firm, I felt like a god dressed for war, dressed to kill. My men buckled their own straps, laced their boots, tested their weapons’ edges, and even Father Willibald cut himself a stave, a great piece of ash that could break a man’s skull. “You won’t need to fight, father,” I told him.

“We all have to fight now, lord,” he said. He took a step back and looked me up and down, and a small smile came to his face. “You’ve grown up,” he said.

“It’s what we do, father,” I said.

“I remember when I first saw you. A child. Now I fear you.”

“Let’s hope the enemy does,” I said, not quite sure what enemy I meant, whether Odda or Ubba, and I wished I had Bebbanburg’s standard, the snarling wolf’s head, but I had my swords and my shield and I led my men out of the wood and across the fields to where the fyrd of Defnascir would make its stand.

The Danes were a mile or so to our left, spilling from the coast road and hurrying to surround the hill called Cynuit, though they would be too late to bar our path. To my right were more Danes, ship Danes, bringing their dragon-headed boats up the Pedredan.

“They outnumber us,” Willibald said.

“They do,” I agreed. There were swans on the river, corncrakes in the uncut hay, and crimson orchids in the meadows. This was the time of year when men should be haymaking or shearing their sheep.
I need not be here,
I thought to myself.
I need not go to this hilltop where the Danes will come to kill us.
I looked at my men and wondered if they thought the same, but when they caught my eye they only grinned, or nodded, and I suddenly realized that they trusted me. I was leading them and they were not questioning me, though Leofric understood the danger. He caught up with me.

“There’s only one way off that hilltop,” he said softly.

“I know.”

“And if we can’t fight our way out,” he said, “then we’ll stay there. Buried.”

“I know,” I said again, and I thought of the spinners and knew they were tightening the threads, and I looked up Cynuit’s slope and saw there were some women at the very top, women being sheltered by their men, and I thought Mildrith might be among them, and that was why I climbed the hill: because I did not know where else to seek her.