The Pale Horseman (18 page)

But he ignored me. He just stared past my shoulder. And the woman's screaming was shrill
now and there were men shouting, and Leofric was yelling my name, and the spectators were no
longer watching us, but running in panic.

So I turned my back on Steapa and looked towards the town on its hill that was cradled by
the river's bend.

And I saw that Cippanhamm was burning. Smoke was darkening the winter sky and the
horizon was filled with men, mounted men, men with swords and axes and shields and spears and
banners, and more horsemen were coming from the eastern gate to thunder across the
bridge.

Because all Alfred's prayers had failed and the Danes had come to Wessex.

Steapa recovered his wits before I did. He stared open-mouthed at the Danes crossing the
bridge and then just ran towards his master, Odda the Younger, who was shouting for his
horses. The Danes were spreading out from the bridge, galloping across the meadow with drawn
swords and levelled spears. Smoke poured into the low wintry clouds from the burning town,
Some of the king's buildings were alight. A riderless horse, stirrups flapping, galloped
across the grass, then Leofric grabbed my elbow and pulled me northwards beside the river.
Most of the folk had gone south and the Danes had followed them, so north seemed to offer more
safety. Iseult had my mail coat and I took it from her, leaving her to carry Wasp-Sting, and
behind us the screaming rose as the Danes chopped into the panicked mass. Folk scattered.
Escaping horsemen thumped past us, the hooves throwing up spadefuls of damp earth and grass
with every step. I saw Odda the Younger swerve away with three other horsemen. Harald, the
shire-reeve, was one of them, but I could not see Steapa and for a moment I feared the big man
was looking for me. Then I forgot him as a band of Danes turned north in pursuit of Odda.

'Where are our horses?' I shouted at Leofric, who looked bemused and I remembered he had
not travelled to Cippanhamm with me. The beasts were probably still in the yard behind the
Corncrake tavern, which meant they were lost.

There was a fallen willow in a stand of leafless alders by the river and we paused there
for breath, hidden by the willow's trunk. I pulled on the mail coat, buckled on my swords and
took my helmet and shield from Leofric. 'Where's Haesten?' I asked.

‘He ran,' Leofric said curtly. So had the rest of my men. They had joined the panic and
were gone southwards. Leofric pointed northwards.

'Trouble,' he said curtly. There was a score of Danes riding down out bank of the river,
blocking our escape, but they were still some distance away, while the men pursuing Odda
had vanished, so Leofric led us across the water meadow to a tangle of thorns, alders,
nettles and ivy. At its centre was an old wattle hut, perhaps a herdsman's shelter, and
though the hut had half collapsed it offered a better hiding place than the willow and so
the three of us plunged into the nettles and crouched behind the rotting timbers.

A bell was ringing in the town. It sounded like the slow tolling which announced a
funeral. It stopped abruptly, started again and then finally ended. A horn sounded. A
dozen horsemen galloped close to our hiding place and all had black cloaks and black painted
shields, the marks of Guthrum's warriors.

Guthrum. Guthrum the Unlucky. He called himself King of East Anglia, but he wanted to be
King of Wessex and this was his third attempt to take the country and this time, I thought,
his luck had turned. While Alfred had been celebrating the twelfth night of Yule, and while
the Witan met to discuss the maintenance of bridges and the punishment of malefactors,
Guthrum had marched. The army of the Danes was in Wessex, Cippanhamm had fallen, and the
great men of Alfred's kingdom had been surprised, scattered or slaughtered. The horn
sounded again and the dozen blackcloaked horsemen turned and rode towards the sound.

'We should have known the Danes were coming,' I said angrily.

'You always said they would,' Leofric said.

'Didn't Alfred have spies at Gleawecestre?'

'He had priests praying here instead,' Leofric said bitterly, 'and he trusted Guthrum's
truce.'

I touched my hammer amulet. I had taken it from a boy in Eoferwic. I had been a boy myself
then, newly captured by the Danes, and my opponent had fought me in a whirl of fists and feet
and I had hammered him down into the riverbank and taken his amulet. I still have it. I touch
it often, reminding Thor that I live, but that day I touched it because I thought of Ragnar.
The hostages would be dead, and was that why Wulfhere had ridden away at dawn? But how could he
have known the Danes were coming? If Wulfhere had known then Alfred would have known and the
West Saxon forces would have been ready. None of it made sense, except that Guthrum had again
attacked during a truce and the last time he had broken a truce he had showed that he was
willing to sacrifice the hostages held to prevent just such an attack. it seemed certain he
had done it again and so Ragnar would be dead and my world was diminished.

So many dead. There were corpses in the meadow between our hiding place and the river, and
still the slaughter went on. Some of the Saxons had run back towards the town, discovered
the bridge was guarded and tried to escape northwards and we watched them being ridden down
by the Danes. Three men tried to resist, standing in a tight group with swords ready, but a
Dane gave a great whoop and charged them with his horse, and his spear went through one man's
mail, crushing his chest and the other two were thrown aside by the horse's weight and
immediately more Danes closed on them, swords and axes rose, and the horsemen spurred
on.

A girl screamed and ran in terrified circles until a Dane, long hair flying, leaned from
his saddle and pulled her dress up over her head so she was blind and half naked. She staggered
in the damp grass and a half-dozen Danes laughed at her, then one slapped her bare rump with his
sword and another dragged her southwards, her screams muffled by the entangling dress.
Iseult was shivering and I put a mail-clad arm around her shoulders.

I could have joined the Danes in the meadow. I spoke their language and, with my long hair
and my arm rings, I looked like a Dane. But Haesten was somewhere in Cippanhamm and he might
betray me, and Guthrum had no great love for me, and even if I survived then it would go hard
with Leofric and Iseult. These Danes were in a rampant mood, flushed by their easy success and
if a dozen decided they wanted Iseult then they would take her whether they thought I was a
Dane or not. They were hunting in packs and so it was best to stay hidden until the frenzy
had passed. Across the river, at the top of the low hill on which Cippanhamm was built, I
could see the town's largest church burning. The thatched roof was whirling into the sky in
great ribbons of flame and plumes of spark-riddled smoke.

'What in God's name were you doing back there?' Leofric asked me.

'Back there?' his question confused me.

'Dancing around Steapa like a gnat! He could have endured that all day!'

'I wounded him,' I said, 'twice.'

'Wounded him? Sweet Christ, he's hurt himself worse when he was shaving!'

'Doesn't matter now, does it?' I said. I guessed Steapa was dead by now. Or perhaps he had
escaped. I did not know. None of us knew what was happening except that the Danes had come.
And Mildrith? My son? They were far away, and presumably they would receive warning of the
Danish attack, but I had no doubt that the Danes would keep going deep into Wessex and there
was nothing I could do to protect Oxton. I had no horse, no men, and no chance of reaching
the south coast before Guthrum's mounted soldiers.

I watched a Dane ride past with a girl across his saddle. 'What happened to that Danish
girl you took home?' I asked Leofric, 'the one we captured off Wales?'

'She's still in Hamtun,' he said, 'and now that I'm not there she's probably in someone
else's bed.'

'Probably? Certainly.'

'Then the bastard's welcome to her,' he said. 'She cries a lot.’

'Mildrith does that,' I said and then, after a pause, 'Eanflaed was angry with you.'

'Eanflaed? Angry with me! Why?'

'Because you didn't go to see her.'

'How could I? I was in chains.' He looked satisfied that the whore had asked after him.
'Eanflaed doesn't cry, does she?'

'Not that I've seen.'

'Good girl that. I reckon she'd like Hamtun.'

If Hamtun still existed. Had a Danish fleet come from Lundene? Was Svein attacking
across the Saefern Sea? I knew nothing except that Wessex was suffering chaos and defeat.
It began to rain again, a thin winter's rain, cold and stinging. Iseult crouched lower and I
sheltered her with my shield. Most of the folk who had gathered to watch the fight by the
river had fled south and only a handful had come our way, which meant there were fewer Danes
near our hiding place, and those that were in the northern river meadows were now gathering
their spoils. They stripped corpses of weapons, belts, mail, clothes, anything of value. A few
Saxon men had survived, but they were being led away with the children and younger women to
be sold as slaves. The old were killed. A wounded man was crawling on hands and knees and a
dozen Danes tormented him like cats playing with an injured sparrow, nicking him with
swords and spears, bleeding him to a slow death. Haesten was one of the tormentors.

'I always liked Haesten,' I said sadly.

'He's a Dane,' Leofric said scornfully.

'I still liked him.'

'You kept him alive,' Leofric said, 'and now he's gone back to his own. You should have
killed him.'

I watched as Haesten kicked the wounded man who called out in agony, begging to be killed,
but the group of young men went on jabbing him, laughing, and the first ravens came. I have
often wondered if ravens smell blood, for the sky can be clear of them all day, but when a man
dies they come from nowhere on their shining black wings. Perhaps Odin sends them, for the
ravens are his birds, and now they flapped down to start feasting on eyes and lips, the first
course of every raven feast. The dogs and foxes would soon follow.

Microsoft Word - The Pale Horseman.doc

'The end of Wessex,' Leofric said sadly.

'The end of England,' I said.

'What do we do?' Iseult asked.

There was no answer from me. Ragnar must be dead, which meant I had no refuge among the
Danes, and Alfred was probably dead or else a fugitive, and my duty now was to my son. He was
only a baby, but he was my son and he carried my name. Bebbanburg would be his if I could
take it back, and if I could not take it back then it would be his duty to recapture the
stronghold, and so the name Uhtred of Bebbanburg would go on till the last weltering chaos of
the dying world.

We must get to Hamtun,' Leofric said, 'find the crew.'

Except the Danes would surely be there already? Or else on their way. They knew where the
power of Wessex lay, where the great lords had their halls, where the soldiers gathered, and
Guthrum would be sending men to burn and kill and so disarm the Saxons' last kingdom.

'We need food,' I said, 'food and warmth.'

'Light a fire here,' Leofric grumbled, 'and we're dead.'

So we waited. The small rain turned to sleet. Haesten and his new companions, now that
their victim was dead, wandered away, leaving the meadow empty but for the corpses and their
attendant ravens. And still we waited, but Iseult, who was as thin as Alfred, was shivering
uncontrollably and so, in the late afternoon, I took off my helmet and unbound my hair so
it hung loose.

'What are you doing?' Leofric asked.

'For the moment,' I said, 'we're Danes. Just keep your mouth shut.'

I led them towards the town. I would have preferred to wait until dark, but Iseult was too
cold to wait longer, and I just hoped the Danes had calmed down. I might look like a Dane, but it
was still dangerous. Haesten might see me, and if he told others how I had ambushed the
Danish ship off Dyfed then I could expect nothing but a slow death. So we went nervously,
stepping past bloodied bodies along the riverside path. The ravens protested as we
approached, flapped indignantly into the winter willows, and returned to their feast when
we had passed. There were more corpses piled by the bridge where the young folk captured for
slavery were being made to dig a grave. The Danes guarding them were drunk and none
challenged us as we went across the wooden span and under the gate arch that was still hung
with holly and ivy in celebration of Christmas.

The fires were dying now, damped by rain or else extinguished by the Danes who were
ransacking houses and churches. I stayed in the narrowest alleys, edging past a smithy, a
hide-dealer's shop and a place where pots had been sold. Our boots crunched through the
pottery shards. A young Dane was vomiting in the alley's entrance and he told me that
Guthrum was in the royal compound where there would be a feast that night. He straightened up,
gasping for breath, but was sober enough to offer me a bag of coins for Iseult. There were
women screaming or sobbing in houses and their noise was making Leofric angry, but I told
him to stay quiet. Two of us could not free Cippanhamm, and if the world had been turned
upside down and it had been a West Saxon army capturing a Danish town it would have sounded
no different.

'Alfred wouldn't allow it,' Leofric said sullenly.

'You'd do it anyway,' I said. 'You've done it.'

I wanted news, but none of the Danes in the street made any sense. They had come from
Gleawecestre, leaving long before dawn, they had captured Cippanhamm and now they wanted
to enjoy whatever the town offered. The big church had burned, but men were raking through
the smoking embers looking for silver. For lack of anywhere else to go we climbed the hill
to the Corncrake tavern where we always drank and found Eanflaed, the redheaded whore,
being held on a table by two young Danes while three others, not one of them more than
seventeen or eighteen, took turns to rape her. Another dozen Danes were drinking peaceably
enough, taking scant notice of the rape.