Sarum (70 page)
Authors: Edward Rutherfurd
“Now we have your brother to avenge. Nor shall we forget Osric or Port’s family. They are our people too.”
Three weeks passed. The force in the marshes slowly grew; but outside, nothing changed. The weather was relentlessly cold. And yet, in that ramshackle and informal camp, where the few thanes wandered in and out of the king’s tent as if it were their own, Aelfwald did not lose hope.
The king was extraordinary. It never ceased to amaze Aelfwald how, in the middle of his difficulties, Alfred’s active, urgent mind could switch to the higher matters that he considered so important.
“Look at these,” he would say to the thane, pointing to the pile of books that always lay on the table at the centre of his quarters. “I have once again been hearing my teachers read me the history of our people written by that great man Bede, more than a century ago.” He would sigh. “Why has our own century produced no such man?”
And more than once when he had confessed to Aelfwald – “I had hoped for so much. But now . . .” – and his head had dropped in despair, he would suddenly recover his spirits and exclaim eagerly: “This, my friends, is the answer to despair.” And he would tap a huge book. “Boethius gives us consolation. One day I will translate it from Latin into our own Anglo-Saxon tongue.” Then he would poke Aelfwald in the ribs and grin: “So I shall expect you to learn to read by then, my friend.”
For Boethius’s
Consolation of Philosophy
, written by the last great pagan philosopher of the Roman world as he awaited execution four centuries before, was so noble a book that few Christians had any difficulty in accepting its prescriptions – that peace of mind can only be reached by the contemplation of eternal truths – and together with the works of St Augustine it had become one of the best loved books of the Middle Ages.
Consolation of Philosophy
, written by the last great pagan philosopher of the Roman world as he awaited execution four centuries before, was so noble a book that few Christians had any difficulty in accepting its prescriptions – that peace of mind can only be reached by the contemplation of eternal truths – and together with the works of St Augustine it had become one of the best loved books of the Middle Ages.
“Boethius, Augustine, the laws of King Ine: these are the things every educated man should know,” Alfred often told the thane. “Through study, Aelfwald, we rise above our difficulties.”
By mid-February, another problem had arisen: the camp was short of food. Each day scouts were sent out to forage, but each day they came back with less, and it almost seemed that the little Saxon force might have to break up for lack of supplies.
It was then that Aelfwald formed a daring plan.
When the thane sent Tostig and the boats up river from Wilton, he had not held out great hopes that they would escape capture. But, under the supervision of his son Aelfric, the fisherman had done surprisingly well, bringing the six boats across a network of rivers, occasionally crossing small strips of land, and arriving at the marsh of Athelney only three days after the rest of the party, with all the goods from Wilton still intact.
Recent reports from the scouts suggested that while there were Viking camps along the Wylye valley near Wilton, the thane’s farmstead at Sarum had, so far, been left untouched.
One morning Aelfwald summoned the slave and told him what he had in mind.
He was a strange, disreputable looking fellow, the thane thought, with his lank, dark hair, his narrow-set eyes and long thin hands and toes. He reminded him of one of the long flies that lay on the surface of the stream. As Tostig listened to what was proposed, he stood in his customary attitude, his head staring at his feet, maintaining a sullen silence that might have been insolence, or might not. Whatever the slave’s true thoughts, Tostig had always done his work well when he was made to, and the thane’s table had always been liberally supplied with fish netted in the five rivers.
“Well, can you do it?” he asked peremptorily when he had finished.
Tostig did not look up.
“Maybe.”
“You may take any men you want. Aelfstan or Aelfric can accompany you.”
The slave shook his head.
“They’d only be in the way.”
“As you like.” This was, he knew, as much enthusiasm as he would ever elicit. “Good luck then.”
That evening he watched Tostig and his family push the six empty boats into the stream and paddle away. He wondered if he would ever see them again.
Ten days later, Tostig returned.
He had done brilliantly. Using his intimate knowledge of the waterways, he had brought the boats past every Viking camp, usually at night, without being noticed. He had slipped by Wilton and gone up the Avon to the thane’s farmstead without difficulty. There, as Aelfwald had hoped, he had found all the hidden stores intact. Having loaded the boats he returned, cleverly and silently, just as he had gone.
“Bring all the provisions you can find,” Aelfwald had told him. “You know what we need.”
The results, when Aelfwald led the king down to the banks where Tostig was unloading, brought a smile to Alfred’s face.
There were ten vats of honey, two hundred cheeses, forty sacks of flour, flagons of ale, both dark and clear, two hundred pounds weight of fodder and the carcasses of twenty sheep, which Tostig had managed to preserve in the cold.
With a proud smile the thane explained: “This is the feorm I owe you for my land.”
At this Alfred roared with laughter, then clapped the loyal thane on the back; but a moment later, it seemed to Aelfwald that he was close to tears. For the feorm, the tax in kind owed by a thane to the king or his superior lord, was a reminder of how far Wessex was from its normal state of order.
“Soon Thane Aelfwald,” the king said quietly, “I hope we shall return to a time when the king collects his feorm as before.” Then turning to Tostig the slave he announced: “You are a freedman from this hour: I shall pay your lord Aelfwald the price of your freedom.” At which, true to his character, the surly slave bowed his head respectfully, but did not smile.
But what gave the thane more pleasure even than the king’s praise was the cargo Tostig brought in the last boat: two small children whom they had assumed must be dead. When he saw these, tears came to the thane’s eyes too and he shouted:
“Tell Port we have livestock for him.”
Later that day the two children told the sheep farmer and the thane how they had lived alone for weeks at the sheep farm, and then at the empty farmstead in the valley; and how during the massacre they had been saved by a grey-bearded Viking about whom they could tell the listeners nothing except that he was called Bar-ni-kel.
The battle of Edington which took place in the spring of 878, though it involved only modest numbers of men, ranks with those other small but vital conflicts – Hastings, the Armada, the Battle of Britain – as one of the turning points in the island’s history.
As the winter drew to an end, Aelfwald was aware of a sense of anticipation growing within the community at Athelney. The king was active now: scouts were being sent out in all directions to monitor the Vikings’ changing dispositions; others were sent to rally support.
It was in late March that the spirits of all at the camp were raised by a piece of unexpected news. A detachment that the king had sent into the rich lands of the south west had succeeded in collecting a sizeable force together there, and this new group had met and defeated a Viking raiding party which had crossed, in no less than twenty-three ships, from Wales. Over a thousand of the raiders were reported dead: it was the first hint of success for many months.
The thane’s sons were eager to attack in force.
“We should raid Guthrum himself at Chippenham,” Aelfstan urged. “Teach him a lesson.”
But King Alfred waited. For too long the war with the Vikings had followed this pattern of inconclusive battles followed by a payment of danegeld and a temporary withdrawal.
“This time,” he told Aelfwald, “we must force them out for good. Nothing less will do.” And each day, messengers came with news of more thanes willing to meet him when he marched.
Easter came and the whole camp gathered in a nearby field where a tall wooden cross had been set up. The nuns of Wilton, and the few monks whom the king had in his entourage celebrated a mass and it was after this that Aelfwald saw King Alfred advance to the cross and turn to address them.
“The time has nearly come,” he cried. “And if it is God’s will, we’ll drive the Vikings out of Wessex for ever. If not,” he added grimly, “we’ll die in the attempt.”
As the thane waited eagerly for the day of departure, one problem arose that he had not anticipated. It concerned his daughter.
After her escapade with the Vikings at Sarum, he had been furious as well as relieved on her return, and for the rest of the journey he had ordered her to ride in one of the waggons with her mother so that she could not get up to any further mischief. At the camp, she had been duly submissive, confining herself to domestic tasks and helping the other women prepare food and look after the soldiers.
“My daughter is a little wild,” he had confessed to Alfred, “but I can control her.”
He was astonished therefore when, the evening after the mass, Aelfgifu had appeared before him and calmly announced:
“I’m coming with you to fight.”
“Impossible. You’re a woman,” he told her.
“But I’m coming anyway,” she repeated obstinately.
How dare she defy him? The whole idea was absurd.
“You’ll stay at the camp,” he thundered. “Let me hear no more of this.”
“I fight as well as any man,” she insisted.
He glowered at her. He knew that what she said was true and, secretly, he was proud of his extraordinary daughter’s prowess. But it was not seemly for a young woman to behave like this and he knew that some of the other thanes smiled at him behind his back because of her.
“It’s impossible,” he repeated, and expected that to be the end of the matter.
It was not. The very next morning, to his fury, his two sons appeared before him to plead the foolish girl’s cause.
“I’ve seen her fight,” young Aelfstan said, “and I’d sooner have her with me than most men.”
“And would you like to see her killed beside you as well?” he demanded irritably.
“No,” Aelfstan confessed, “but if she’s so determined to do it, then I’d rather she took the risk. And I’d rather we both died fighting together, if we lose, than leave her to her fate with the Vikings.”
To the thane’s surprise, his elder son Aelfric agreed.
“He has to,” Aelfstan laughed, “she’s threatened to break his arm if he doesn’t!”
He had heard enough. It was time to assert his authority.
“I’ll hear no more of this,” he ordered. “Bring her here at once. If necessary I’ll put her under guard.”
But now the two young men were looking at each other awkwardly.
“The fact is,” Aelfric confessed, “she’s already left the camp. She says she’ll follow us anyway, if you refuse,” he explained. “If you change your mind and agree, though, then we’re to let her know by leaving a sign in the woods up there,” and he gestured towards the hill nearby.
Aelfwald gazed at his son in stupefaction.
“And you didn’t stop her?”
Aelfstan grinned.
“How, father? She was already armed and we weren’t.”
The thane was lost for words. He was not sure whether he wanted to explode with fury or burst out laughing. Finally he sighed.
“I shall be the laughing stock of the whole army,” he acknowledged. “Tell her she rides.”
A few days later, they started.
The camp at Athelney was left with a light guard. As well as leaving Aelfgifu, it had also been Aelfwald’s intention to leave Port at the camp, but when the sheep farmer pleaded with him – “Let me fight at your side my lord, as I swore an oath to do; and let me avenge my wife” – he could hardly refuse. His own wife and the abbess were placed in charge of the women, and they too were armed. Even Edith proudly showed the thane a spear that she had been given, and brandished it with such ferocity that he had to turn away so as not to let her see him smile.
The valuables were loaded into Tostig’s boat so that they could be transported either back to Sarum, or if necessary, to another hiding place, and the thane ordered the former slave and his family to guard them with their lives.
As he left the camp, the last thing that Aelfwald saw was the fisherman crouched over the boat by the swollen stream, his bare feet with their long, prehensile toes gripping the bank, and his dark, narrow face concentrated on his task, oblivious to the Saxon warriors passing by. He would never know, he thought, what was passing in that curious fellow’s brain.
At first it caused some amusement to the soldiers that Thane Aelfwald was accompanied not by two, but three fine warriors, and that one of them was a woman.
“She’s there to protect them,” they cried. But some of the others, who had ridden with her and Aelfstan at Sarum assured them: “You may laugh, but the Vikings won’t.” And though the stern-faced thane remained aloof from all these conversations, he felt a secret flush of pride in his brave daughter as the little force made their way from Athelney.
The place where Alfred had told his thanes to gather lay two days away, at the edge of Selwood Forest. As the little force from Athelney drew nearer, Aelfwald wondered how many they would find there. Would the thanes of Wessex prove as good as their word?
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