Death of Kings (37 page)

‘To clean? To sweep? To spin? To cook?’

‘To supervise the servants, yes.’

‘And to raise the children?’

‘That too,’ I agreed.

‘In other words,’ she said tartly, ‘women are supposed to do all that a man can’t do. And right now it seems men can’t fight, so I’d better do that too.’ She smiled triumphantly, then laughed when I scowled. In truth I was glad of her company. It was not just that I loved her, but Æthelflaed’s presence always inspired men. The Mercians adored her. She might have been a West Saxon, but her mother was a Mercian, and Æthelflaed had adopted that country as her own. Her generosity was famous, there was hardly a convent in Mercia that did not depend on the income from the wide estates Æthelflaed had inherited to help their widows and orphans.

Once across the Temes we were in Wessex. The same hoof-scarred path showed where the great army had spread out as they went southwards, and the first villages we passed were burned, their ashes now turned to a grey sludge by the night’s rain. I sent Finan and fifty men ahead to act as scouts, warning them that the smoke trails in the sky were much closer than I had expected. ‘What did you expect?’ Æthelflaed asked me.

‘That the Danes would go straight to Wintanceaster,’ I said.

‘And attack it?’

‘They should,’ I said, ‘or ravage the country around the city and hope they can lure Edward out for a fight.’

‘If Edward’s there,’ she said uncertainly.

But instead of attacking Wintanceaster, the Danes seemed to be scouring the land just south of the Temes. It was good land with plump farms and rich villages, though much of its wealth would have been driven or carried into the closest burhs. ‘They have to besiege a burh or leave,’ I said, ‘and they don’t usually have the patience for a siege.’

‘Then why come in the first place?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe Æthelwold thought folk would support him? Maybe they hope Edward will lead an army against them and they can defeat him?’

‘Will he?’

‘Not till he has enough strength,’ I said, hoping that was true. ‘But right now,’ I said, ‘the Danes are being slowed by captives and by plunder and they’ll send some of that back to East Anglia.’ That was what Haesten had done during his great ravaging of Mercia. His forces had moved swiftly, but he had constantly detached bands of men to escort his captive slaves and loaded pack mules back to Beamfleot. If my suspicion was right, the Danes would be sending men back along the route they had come, and that was why I rode south, looking for one of those Danish bands taking plunder back to East Anglia.

‘It would make more sense for them to use another route,’ Æthelflaed observed.

‘They have to know the country to do that. Following your own tracks home is much easier.’

We did not need to ride far from the bridge because the Danes were surprisingly close, indeed they were very close. Within an hour Finan had returned to me with news that large bands of Danes were spread all across the nearer country. The land rose gradually towards the south and the fires of destruction were burning on the far skyline while men brought captives, livestock and plunder to the lower ground. ‘There’s a village on the road ahead,’ Finan told me, ‘or rather there was a village, and they’re collecting the plunder there, and there’s not more than three hundred of the bastards.’

I worried that the Danes had not guarded the bridge at Cracgelad, but the only answer to that worry was to assume they had no fear of any attack from Mercia. I had sent scouts along the river bank to east and west, but none reported any news of a Danish presence. It seemed the enemy was intent on amassing plunder and was not watching for an attack from across the Temes. That was either carelessness, or else a careful trap.

We numbered almost six hundred men. If it was a trap then we would be a hard beast to kill, and I decided to lay a trap of our own. I was beginning to think the Danes were being careless, over-confident of their overwhelming numbers, and we were in their rear and we had a safe route of escape, and the opportunity was simply too good.

‘Can those trees hide us?’ I asked Finan, nodding towards some thick woodland to the south.

‘You could hide a thousand men in there,’ he said.

‘We’ll wait in the trees,’ I said. ‘You’re going to lead all our men,’ I told him, meaning the men sworn to me, ‘and attack the bastards. Then you lead them back towards the rest of us.’

It was a simple ambush, so simple I did not really believe it could work, but this was still the war that passed understanding. First, it was happening three years too late and now, after attempting to lure me to Ceaster, the Danes seemed to have forgotten all about me. ‘They have too many leaders,’ Æthelflaed suggested as we walked our horses south along the Roman road that led from the bridge, ‘and they’re all men, so not one of them will give in. They’re arguing among themselves.’

‘Let’s hope they go on arguing,’ I said. Once among the trees we spread out. Æthelflaed’s men were on the right, and I sent Osferth to keep her safe. Steapa’s men went to the left, while I stayed in the centre. I dismounted, giving my horse’s reins to Oswi, and walked with Finan to the wood’s southern edge. Our arrival in the trees had sent pigeons clattering through the branches, but no Danes took any notice. The nearest were some two or three hundred paces away, close to a mixed herd of sheep and goats. Beyond them was a steading, still unburned, and I could see a crowd of people there.

‘Captives,’ Finan said, ‘women and children.’

There were Danes there too, their presence betrayed by a large herd of saddled horses in a hedged paddock. It was hard to tell how many horses, but it was at least a hundred. The steading was a small hall beside a pair of newly thatched barns, their roofs bright in the sun. There were more Danes beyond the hall, out in fields, where I assumed they were collecting livestock. ‘I’d suggest riding for the hall,’ I said, ‘kill as many as you can, bring me a captive and take their horses.’

‘About time we had a fight,’ Finan said wolfishly.

‘Lead them onto us,’ I said, ‘and we’ll kill every last mother’s son.’ He turned to go, but I put a hand on his mailed arm. I was still staring south. ‘It isn’t a trap, is it?’

Finan gazed south. ‘They reached this far without a fight,’ he said, ‘and they think no one dares face them.’

I felt a moment’s frustration. If I had Mercia’s army at Cracgelad, and Edward could bring the men of Wessex from the south, we could have crushed this careless army, but so far as I knew we were the only Saxon troops anywhere near the Danes. ‘I want to keep them here,’ I said.

‘Keep them here?’ Finan asked.

‘Near the bridge, so King Edward can bring men to crush them.’ We had more than enough men to hold the bridge against as many attacks as the Danes could make. We did not even need Æthelred’s Mercians to make this trap work. This, then, was the battleground I wanted. ‘Sihtric!’

The choice of this place as the ground to destroy the Danes was so obvious, so tempting and so advantageous that I did not want to wait before Edward knew of my certainty. ‘I’m sorry you’ll miss the fight,’ I told Sihtric, ‘but this is urgent.’ I was sending him with three other men to ride westwards and then south. They were to follow my first messengers and tell the king where the Danes were, and how they could be beaten. ‘Tell him the enemy is just waiting to be killed. Tell him this can be his first great victory, tell him the poets will sing of it for generations, and above all tell him to hurry!’ I waited until Sihtric was gone, then looked back to the enemy. ‘Bring me as many horses as you can,’ I told Finan.

Finan led my men southwards, keeping to some woods east of the road, while I brought up all the remaining horsemen. I rode along our line, ducking under the low branches, and told men they should not only kill the enemy, but wound them. Wounded men slow an army. If Sigurd, Cnut, and Eohric had badly wounded troops then they could not ride fast and loose. I wanted to slow this army, to trap it, to keep it in place till the forces of Wessex could come from the south to kill it.

I watched the birds fly from the trees where Finan was leading my men. Not one Dane noticed, or took any interest if he did see the birds. I waited beside Æthelflaed and felt a sudden exhilaration. The Danes were trapped. They did not know it, but they were doomed. Bishop Erkenwald’s sermon was right, of course, and war is a dreadful thing, but it could also be so enjoyable, and there was no part more enjoyable than forcing an enemy to do your bidding. This enemy was where I wanted him, and where he would die, and I remember laughing aloud and Æthelflaed looked at me curiously. ‘What’s funny?’ she asked, but I did not answer because just then Finan’s men broke cover.

They charged from the east. They went fast and for a moment the Danes seemed stunned by their sudden appearance. Hoof-thrown clods of earth flecked the air behind my men, I could see the light reflected from their blades, and I watched Danes running towards the hall, and then Finan’s men were among them, riding them down, horsemen overtaking fugitives, blades falling, blood colouring the day, men falling, bleeding, panicking and Finan drove them on, aiming for the field where the Danish horses were penned.

I heard a horn call. Men were gathering at the hall, men snatching up shields, but Finan ignored them. A hurdle lay across the hedge opening and I saw Cerdic lean down and pull it away. The Danish horses surged through the opened gap to follow my men. More Danes were galloping from the south, called by the urgent horn, while Finan led a wild charge of riderless horses towards our trees. The path where he had galloped was strewn with bodies, I counted twenty-three, and not all dead. Some were wounded, writhing on the ground as their lifeblood stained the grass. Panicked sheep milled, a second horn joined its summons to the first, the noise harsh in the afternoon air. The Danes were gathering, but they had still not seen the rest of us among the trees. They saw a herd of their horses being driven northwards and they must have assumed Finan was from Cracgelad’s garrison and that the horses were being taken across the Temes into the safety of those stone walls, and some Danes set off in pursuit. They spurred their horses as Finan vanished among the trees. I drew Serpent-Breath and my stallion’s ears pricked back as he heard the hiss of the blade through the scabbard’s fleece-lined throat. He was trembling, pawing the ground with one heavy hoof. He was called Broga, and he was excited by the horses crashing through the trees. He whinnied and I loosened the reins to let him go forward.

‘Kill and wound!’ I shouted. ‘Kill and wound!’

Broga, the name meant terror, leaped forward. All along the wood’s edge the horsemen appeared, blades gleaming, and we charged at the scattered Danes, shouting, and the world was the drumbeat of hooves.

Most Danes turned to flee. The sensible ones kept charging towards us, knowing that their best chance of survival lay in crashing through our ranks and escaping behind us. My shield banged on my back, Serpent-Breath was raised, and I swerved towards a man on a grey horse and saw him ready to swing his sword at me, but one of Æthelflaed’s men speared him first, and he twisted in the saddle, sword falling, and I left him behind and caught up with a Dane fleeing on foot and slammed Serpent-Breath across his shoulders, drew her back along his neck, saw him stagger, left him, swung the sword at a running man and laid his scalp open so that his long hair was suddenly wet with blood.

The dismounted Danes by the hall had made a shield wall, perhaps forty or fifty men who faced us with their round shields overlapping, but Finan had turned and brought his men back, savaging his way up the road and leaving bodies behind him and he now brought his men behind the shield wall. He screamed his Irish challenge, words that meant nothing to any of us, but curdled the blood all the same, and the shield wall, seeing horsemen in front and behind, broke apart. Their captives were cowering in the yard, all women and children, and I shouted at them to head north towards the river. ‘Go, go!’ Broga had charged two men. One swung his sword at Broga’s mouth, but he was trained well and reared up, hooves flailing, and the man ducked away. I clung to him, waited till he came down and brought Serpent-Breath hard down onto the second man’s head, splitting helmet and skull. I heard a scream and saw that Broga had bitten off the first man’s face. I spurred on. Dogs were howling, children screaming, and Serpent-Breath was feeding. A naked woman stumbled from the hall, her hair unbound, her face smeared with blood. ‘Go that way!’ I shouted at her, pointing my red blade north.

‘My children!’

‘Find them! Go!’

A Dane came from the hall, sword in hand, stared in horror and turned back, but Rypere had seen him and galloped by him, seized him by his long hair and dragged him away. Two spears gouged his belly and a stallion trampled him and he writhed, bloody and moaning and we left him there.

‘Oswi!’ I shouted for my servant. ‘Horn!’

More Danes were showing in the south now, many more Danes, and it was time to go. We had hurt the enemy badly, but this was no place to fight against an outnumbering horde. I just wanted the Danes to stay here, trapped by the river, so that Edward could bring the army of Wessex against them and drive them like cattle onto my swords. Oswi kept sounding the horn, the noise frantic.

‘Back!’ I shouted. ‘All of you! Back!’

We went back slowly enough. Our wild charge had killed and wounded at least a hundred men so that the small fields were dotted with bodies. The injured lay in ditches or by hedges, and we left them there. Steapa was grinning, a fearsome sight, his big teeth bared and his sword reddened. ‘Your men are the rearguard,’ I told him, and he nodded. I looked for Æthelflaed and was relieved to see her unharmed. ‘Look after the fugitives,’ I told her. The escaped captives had to be shepherded back. I saw the naked woman dragging two small children by their hands.

I formed my men at the edge of the trees where our charge had started. We waited there, shields on our arms now, swords bright with enemy blood, and we dared the Danes to come at us, but they were disorganised and they were hurt, and they would not risk a charge until they had more men, and once I saw that the fugitives were safely gone north I shouted at my men to follow them.