The Pale Horseman (45 page)

'Where was your shield?' I demanded of Æthelwold.

'I've got it,' he said. He looked pale and frightened.

'You're supposed to protect Pyrlig's head,' I snarled at him.

'It's nothing,' Pyrlig tried to calm my anger.

Æthelwold looked as if he would protest, then suddenly jerked forward and vomited. I
turned away from him. I was angry, but I was also disappointed. The bowel-loosening fear
was gone, but the fighting had seemed half-hearted and ineffective. We had seen off the
Danes who had attacked us, but we had not hurt them so badly that they would abandon the
fight. I wanted to feel the battle-rage, the screaming joy of killing, and instead all
seemed ponderous and difficult.

I had looked for Ragnar during the fight, fearing having to fight my friend, and when the
Danes had gone back to the fort I saw he had been engaged further down the line. I could see
him now, on the rampart, staring at us, then I looked right, expecting to see Svein lead his
men in an assault on us, but instead I saw Svein galloping to the fort and I suspected he
went to demand reinforcements from Guthrum.

The battle was less than an hour old, yet now it paused. Some women brought us water and
mouldy bread while the wounded sought what help they could find. I wrapped a rag around
Eadric's left arm where an axe blade had gone through the leather of his sleeve.

'It was aimed at you, lord,' he said, grinning at me toothlessly.

I tied the rag into place. 'Does it hurt?'

'Bit of an ache,' he said, 'but not bad. Not bad.' He flexed his arm, found it worked and
picked up his shield.

I looked again at Svein's men, but they seemed in no hurry to resume their attack. I saw a
man tip a skin of water or ale to his mouth. Just ahead of us, among the line of dead, a man
suddenly sat up. He was Danish and had plaited black hair that had been tied in knots and
decorated with ribbons. I had thought he was dead, but he sat up and stared at us with a look
of indignation and then, seemingly, yawned. He was looking straight at me, his mouth open,
and then a flood of blood rimmed and spilled over his lower lip to soak his beard. His eyes
rolled white and he fell backwards. Svein's men were still not moving. There were some eight
hundred of them arrayed in their line. They were still the left wing of Guthrum's army, but
that wing was much smaller now that it had been shorn of Wulfhere's men, and so I turned and
pushed through our ranks to find Alfred.

'Lord!' I called, getting his attention. 'Attack those men!' I pointed to Svein's troops.
They were a good two hundred paces from the fort and, for the moment at least, without their
leader because Svein was still inside the ramparts. Alfred looked down on me from his
saddle and I urged him to attack with every man in the centre division of our army. The
Danes had the escarpment at their back and I reckoned we could tip them down that
treacherous slope.

Alfred listened to me, looked at Svein's men, then shook his head dumbly. Beocca was on
his knees, hands spread wide and face screwed tight in an intensity of prayer.

'We can drive them off, lord,' I insisted.

'They'll come from the fort,' Alfred said, meaning that Guthrum's Danes would come to help
Svein's men. Some would, but I doubted enough would come.

'But we want them out of the fort,' I insisted. 'They're easier to kill in open ground,
lord.'

Alfred just shook his head again. I think, at that moment, he was almost paralysed by the
fear of doing the wrong thing, and so he chose to do nothing. He wore a plain helmet with a
nasal, no other protection for his face, and he looked sickly pale. He could not see an
obvious opportunity, and so he would let the enemy make the next decision.

It was Svein who made it. He brought more Danes out of the fort, three or four hundred of
them. Most of Guthrum's men stayed behind the ramparts, but those men who had made the first
attack on Alfred's bodyguard now streamed onto the open downland where they joined Svein's
troops and made their shield wall. I could see Ragnar's banner among them.

'They're going to attack, aren't they?' Pyrlig said. The rain had washed much of the blood
from his face, but the split in his helmet looked gory. 'I'm all right,' he said, seeing me
glance at the damage, 'I've had worse from a row with the wife. But those bastards are coming,
aren't they? They want to keep killing us from our right.'

'We can beat them, lord,' I called back to Alfred. 'Put all our men against them. All of
then!'

He seemed not to hear.

'Bring Wiglaf's fyrd across, lord!' I appealed to him.

'We can't move Wiglaf,' he said indignantly.

He feared that if he moved the Sumorsaete fyrd from its place in front of the fort then
Guthrum would lead all his men out to assault our left flank, but I knew Guthrum was far too
cautious to do any such thing. He felt safe behind the turf ramparts and he wanted to stay
safe while Svein won the battle for him. Guthrum would not move until our army was broken,
then he would launch an assault. But Alfred would not listen. He was a clever man, perhaps as
clever as any man born, but he did not understand battle. He did not understand that battle
is not just about numbers, it is not about moving tall pieces, and it is not even about who has
the advantage in ground, but about passion and madness and a screaming, ungovernable
rage.

And so far I had felt none of those things. We in Alfred's household troops had fought well
enough, but we had merely defended ourselves. We had not carried slaughter to the enemy,
and it is only when you attack that you win. Now, it seemed, we were to defend ourselves
again, and Alfred stirred himself to order me and my men to the right of his line.

'Leave the standards with me,' he said, 'and make sure our flank is safe.'

There was honour in that. The right end of the line was where the enemy might try to wrap
around us and Alfred needed good men to hold that open flank, and so we formed a tight knot
there. Far off across the down I could see the remnants of Osric's fyrd. They were watching
us. Some of them, I thought, would return if they thought we were winning, but for the moment
they were too full of fear to rejoin Alfred's army.

Svein rode his white horse up and down the face of his shield wall. He was shouting at his
troops, encouraging them. Telling them we were weaklings who needed only one push to
topple.

'And I looked,' Pyrlig said to me, 'and I saw a pale horse, and the rider's name was death.'
I stared at him in astonishment. 'It's from the gospel book,' he explained sheepishly, 'and
it just came to my mind.'

'Then put it out of your mind,' I said harshly, 'because our job is to kill him, not fear
him.' I turned to tell Æthelwold to make certain he kept his shield up, but saw he had taken a
new place in the rear rank. He was better there, I decided, so left him alone.

Svein was shouting that we were lambs waiting to be slaughtered, and his men had begun
beating weapons against their shields. There were just over a thousand men in Svein's ranks
now, and they would be assaulting Alfred's division that numbered about the same, but the
Danes, still had the advantage, for every man in their shield wall was a warrior, while over
half our men were from the fyrds of Defnascir, Thomsaeta and Hamptonscir. If we had brought
Wiglaf's fyrd to join us we could have overwhelmed Svein, but by the same token he could have
swamped us if Guthrum had the courage to leave the fort. Both sides were being cautious.
Neither was willing to throw everything into the battle for fear of losing
everything.

Svein's horsemen were on the left flank, opposite my men. He wanted us to feel threatened
by the riders, but a horse will not charge into a shield wall. It will sheer away, and I would
rather face horsemen than foot-soldiers. One horse was tossing its head and I could see blood
on its neck. Another horse was lying dead out where the corpses lay in the cold wind that was
bringing the first ravens from the north. Black wings in a dull sky. Odin's birds.

'Come and die!' Steapa suddenly shouted. 'Come and die, you bastards! Come on!'

His shout prompted others along our line to call insults to the Danes. Svein turned,
apparently surprised by our sudden defiance. His men had started forward, but stopped
again, and I realised, with surprise, that they were just as fearful as we were. I had always
held the Danes in awe, reckoning them the greatest fighting men under the sky. Alfred, in a
moment of gloom, once told me it took four Saxons to beat one Dane, and there was a truth in
that, but it was not a binding truth, and it was not true that day for there was no passion in
Svein's men. There was unhappiness there, a reluctance to advance, and I reckoned that
Guthrum and Svein had quarrelled. Or perhaps the cold, damp wind had quelled everyone's
ardour.

'We're going to win this battle!' I shouted, and surprised myself by shouting it.

Men looked at me, wondering if I had been sent a vision by my gods.

'We're going to win!' I was hardly aware of speaking. I had not meant to make a speech, but
I made one anyway. 'They're frightened of us!' I called out, 'they're scared! Most of them are
skulking in the fort because they daren't come out to face Saxon blades! And those men,' I
gestured at Svein's ranks with Wasp-Sting, 'know they're going to die. They're going to die.'
I took a few paces forward and spread my arms to get the Danes' attention. I held my shield
out to the left and Wasp-Sting to the right. 'You're going to die' I shouted it in Danish,
loud as I could, then in English. 'You're going to die!'

And all Alfred's men took up that shout. 'You're going to die! You're going to die!'

Something odd happened then. Beocca and Pyrlig claimed that the spirit of God wafted
through our army, and maybe that did happen, or else we suddenly began to believe in
ourselves. We believed we could win and as the chant was shouted at the enemy we began to go
forward, step by step, beating swords against shields and shouting that the enemy would die.
I was ahead of my men, taunting the enemy, screaming at them, dancing as I went, and Alfred
called me back to the ranks. Later, when all was done, Beocca told me that Alfred called me
repeatedly, but I was capering and shouting, out ahead on the grass where the corpses lay,
and I did not hear him. And Alfred's men were following me and he did not call them back
though he had not ordered them forward.

'You bastards!' I screamed, 'you goat-turds! You fight like girls!' I do not know what
insults I shouted that day, only that I shouted them and that I went ahead, on my own,
asking just one of them to come and fight me man to man.

Alfred never approved of those duels between the shield walls. Perhaps, sensibly, he
disapproved because he knew he could not have fought one himself, but he also saw them as
dangerous. When a man invites an enemy champion to a fight, man on man, he invites his own
death, and if he dies he takes the heart from his own side and gives courage to the enemy, and
so Alfred ever forbade us to accept Danish challenges, but on that cold wet day one man did
accept my challenge. It was Svein himself. Svein of the White Horse, and he turned the white
horse and spurred towards me with his sword in his right hand. I could hear the hooves
thumping, see the clods of wet turf flying behind, see the stallion's mane tossing and I
could see Svein's boar-masked helmet above the rim of his shield. Man and horse coming for me,
and the Danes were jeering and just then Pyrlig shouted at me.

'Uhtred! Uhtred!'

I did not turn to look at him. I was too busy sheathing Wasp-Sting and was about to pull
SerpentBreath from her scabbard, but just then Pyrlig's thick-shafted boar spear skidded
beside me in the wet grass, and I understood what he was trying to tell me.

I left Serpent-Breath on my shoulder and snatched up the Briton's spear just as Svein
closed on me. All I could hear was the thunder of hooves, see the white cloak spreading, the
bright shine of the lofted blade, the tossing horsehair plume, white eyes on the horse, teeth
bared, and then Svein twitched the stallion to his left and cut the sword at me. His eyes were
glittering behind the eyepieces of his helmet as he leaned to kill me, but as his sword came
I threw myself into his horse and rammed the spear into the beast's guts. I had to do it
one-handed, for I had my shield on my left arm, but the wide blade pierced hide and muscle,
and I was screaming, trying to drive it deeper, and then Svein's sword struck my lifted
shield like a hammer blow and his right knee struck my helmet so that I was thrown hard back to
sprawl on the grass. I had let go of the spear, but it was well buried in the horse's belly and
the animal was screaming and shaking, bucking and tossing, and thick blood was pouring down
the spear's shaft that banged and bounced along the grass.

The horse bolted. Svein somehow stayed in the saddle. There was blood on the beast's
belly. I had not hurt Svein, I had not touched him, but he was fleeing from me, or rather his
white horse was bolting in pain and it ran straight at Svein's own shield wall. A horse will
instinctively swerve away from a shield wall, but this horse was blinded by pain, and then,
just short of the Danish shields, it half fell. It slid on the wet grass and skidded hard into
the skjaldborg, breaking it open. Men scattered from the animal. Svein tumbled from the
saddle, and then the horse somehow managed to get hack on its feet, and it reared and
screamed. Blood was flying from its belly, and its hooves were flailing at the Danes, and now
we were charging them at the run. I was on my feet, Serpent-Breath in my right hand, and the
horse was thrashing and twisting, and the Danes backed away from it, and that opened their
shield wall as we hit them.

Svein was just getting to his feet as Alfred's men arrived. I did not see it, but men said
Steapa's sword took Svein's head off in one blow. A blow so hard that the helmeted head flew
into the air, and perhaps that was true, but what was certain was that the passion was on us
now. The blinding, seething passion of battle. The blood lust, the killing rage, and the horse
was doing the work for us, breaking the Danish shield wall apart so all we had to do was ram
into the gaps and kill.