The Edge of Light (36 page)

“A little harping would not come amiss just now,” her husband replied. “Have him over.”

And so Erlend found himself approaching the King of Wessex, his wife, and one of the chief ealdormen of Mercia. Elswyth said to her husband, “I was talking to Erlend this morning, Alfred. He is a very good man.”

“He must know horses,” Alfred said instantly.

“You are so amusing,” and she gave him a haughty look.

“Know horses?” Ethelred was puzzled.

“Elswyth’s measure of a man is how well he sits a horse,” Alfred informed his guest.

Elswyth’s nose was still in the air. “I did not see Erlend ride,” she told her husband. Then, with a faint grin: “But he did watch me work Copper on the long rope and he was able to understand what I was doing, It takes a good eye for a horse to do that.”

The king’s golden eyes rested on Erlend’s face. They were less friendly than his wife’s. “If my wife says you are knowledgeable, Harper, then you are.” A beat of silence. “I wonder where you learned to judge fine horseflesh?”

Once again Erlend was aware of how quick Alfred was to pick up an incongruity. He answered before ever he knew what he was going to say, “I have not always been fortunate enough to earn my meat by my music, my lord. I have been stableboy too in my time.”

“I have ever found that people either have a natural eye for a horse or they do not,” Elswyth said. “Look at that dreadful nag Wilfred bought. He thinks it beautiful, and it would be, I suppose, if you cut off its legs.” She looked at Erlend. “Its canon bones are thin and long, it’s over at the knee, and it’s sickle-hocked as well.”

One of the thanes on the bench Erlend had left rustled with indignation. Elswyth called over to him, “It is true, Wilfred, as I told you when you bought him.”

Erlend smothered a smile; Elswyth’s husband did not even try to hide his grin. Ethelred said, “You haven’t changed at all, Elswyth.”

“I never change,” she said complacently.

“Well,” said Alfred, and looked at Erlend, “let us have some music.”

Two days later a scout came flying into Wilton manor with the news that the Danes were on the march. The word went out to Alfred’s thanes: “Coming toward Wilton.” And the fighting men began to prepare.

Alfred sent his wife, his children, and an escort of thanes south to Dorchester. Erlend watched them leave, Elswyth riding a small gray gelding and holding her infant son in her arms. Flavia rode with Ethelred of Mercia, whom Alfred had asked to lead the escort guiding his family to safety. Ethelred also was charged with seeing to the defenses of Dorchester, whence the men of Wessex would retreat in case of necessity.

Erlend then judged it was time for him also to depart from Wilton. It was almost a certainty by now that Alfred was not going to be able to collect any meaningful number of reinforcements, so Erlend would be able to give an accurate report of the enemy’s numbers to Halfdan. None of the West Saxons were either very interested or very surprised at his going. Clearly they had not expected a small Prankish harper to feel called upon to fight alongside them.

Erlend came upon the Danish army a little to the southwest of Andover. First he sought out Guthrum, who listened to his tale in silence and with somewhat grudging admiration.

“You have done well, Nephew,” he said finally when Erlend had finished. “They still do not know who you really are?”

“No.”

Guthrum’s face took on the look it always wore when he was plotting something. He said nothing further, however, just told Erlend to come with him to see Halfdan.

“You outnumber them by better than four-to-one,” Erlend was telling his leader some five minutes later. “Most of their men have gone back to their farms. Alfred has with him only the thanes who live in his hall and the thanes of his ealdormen.”

“What is the disposition of the land?” Halfdan wanted to know.

Erlend told him as best he could.

“This Alfred will not want to meet us in the open, then,” Halfdan said decidedly. “Not with so little forest to shelter in and with the numbers as uneven as you say. He will either shelter within a fortified position or try to run.”

“This Wilton manor is surrounded by stout timber walls,” Guthrum said, “Erlend says the West Saxons were preparing for battle, not for flight. They will most likely try to defend the manor.”

Erlend agreed with his uncle. “I do not think Alfred will run. He was most certainly preparing to make a stand, and with the shortage of men under him, a defense from behind stout walls is the best that he can do.”

“Good,” said Halfdan. The Danes were experts in siege warfare. “Then that is where we shall go.”

“One other thing, my lord,” Guthrum said softly. “I think it would be well for Erlend to keep out of the sight of the West Saxons.”

Halfdan looked at the jarl, his bushy gray eyebrows eloquent with surprise. “Why?”

Guthrum smiled, the smile Erlend always classified in his mind as his wolf smile. “They have admitted Erlend to their hearth. He has played for their king, and spoken to him as well. If necessary, he can play the harper again and gain access to their councils.”

Halfdan grunted. “A good thought.” He showed his own stained teeth. “Better, though, to finish our work at Wilton.”

“Yes, my lord,” uncle and nephew chorused in reply, then left the king to rejoin their own command.

The May weather continued unusually fine and hot as the Danish host poured down the Roman road leading toward Wilton. It was late in the afternoon of May 28 when they turned west onto a local track that Erlend told them would take them directly to the royal manor of Wilton, behind whose palisade they expected to find the men of Wessex awaiting them.

A mile along the track brought them to a meadow situated right beside a stream that fed into the River Wilye. A sloping hill rose to their east, and the track to Wilton stretched before them. The river afforded drink for their horses and the meadow was rich with grass for grazing. Halfdan, whose army outnumbered Alfred’s by over four-to-one, confidently ordered his men to make camp for the night. The West Saxons would know he was coming, he thought. There was no hurry. Best to let them sweat a bit and think on the fate of Northumbria and East Anglia.

The light faded late. It was not until after midnight that Alfred was able to move his men from near Old Sarum, where the West Saxons had lain concealed all through the day. Old Sarum was four miles to the east of Wilton, two miles to the east of the meadow whereon the Danes were encamped.

The West Saxons had spent the early part of the night in prayer and in the hearing of confessions. It was a bold gamble they were taking, this meeting of the Danes in open battle, and all knew it. Their chances of success, however, greatly increased when the Danes decided to halt in the meadow instead of pushing on for Wilton. A fight in front of the walls of Wilton would not suit Alfred so well as the grounds he was now likely to get.

Alfred was gambling on several things in this particular venture. He was gambling on the overconfidence of the Danes, that they would not bother to post scouts to their east. If guards were indeed posted and sounded the alarm to Halfdan, it would be impossible for Alfred to gain position on the heights, and the surprise maneuver would end in disaster for the West Saxons.

A desperate gamble indeed, but no other course had been open to him that held out any hopes of survival. Alfred had never had any intention of trying to last out a siege within the walls of Wilton manor. His plan had been to fall on the Danes from the rear, inflict as much damage as possible, then withdraw into the forest of Selwood. But now … if the men of Wessex could gain position on the hill and stage a surprise attack at dawn, then perhaps they would even have a chance for victory,

All was quiet when Alfred and his men reached the far side of the hill that lay to the east of the Danish camp. The night was moonless, lit only by distant points of unusually bright stars. The leaders left their horses at the foot of the hill, and the West Saxon thanes, some fifteen hundred strong, began to climb the grassy slope. No cry of alarm disturbed their progress. The Danes, never dreaming that Alfred would have the audacity to offer battle in the open, had not bothered to post scouts.

The West Saxons took up their positions just below the top of the rise and settled down to wait out the night. All was silence. Finally, in the sky to their rear, the waiting thanes could see the sky turning to the light gray of dawn. Then shafts of red began to streak the heavens, and finally it was light enough to see.

All the eyes of the West Saxons were fixed on the slim, bareheaded figure of their king, who was leading the shield column on the right. It was the first time Alfred would be fighting under the royal banner of Wessex, not his own personal banner of the White Horse.

As the eyes of ealdormen and thane watched, the banner of the Golden Dragon was raised on high. The cry came through the early morning air, clear and thrilling.
“Wessex! Wessex!”
And the king was running forward.

His thanes answered him with a roar.
“Wessex! Wessex!”
Then the entire West Saxon army was over the top and thundering down the hill into the unprepared Danish camp below them.

Guthrum could not believe what was happening. They had attacked! He was scarcely out of his bed, had not time to don his armor, time only to grab sword and shield and race forward, his hird of followers at his back, to meet the onrush of West Saxons who had fallen upon them with the unexpected power of an avalanche.

Had the Danes been a less experienced army, Alfred’s charge would have curried the day. As it was, many of the Danish warriors, weaponless and unprepared as they were, fell in the first few minutes of the fight. Then they rallied, strong in their discipline to their leaders, strong in their sense of comradeship with each other.

The battle roared on amidst the tents and the cookfires of the Danish camp. The horses, which the Danes had hobbled and set out to graze the night before, went wild with the smell of blood, and the screaming of injured men was punctuated by the screaming of frantic horses fighting to get free of their hobbles.

The Danes struggled to form up into two rough wedge formations, Halfdan commanding one and Guthrum the other. Red streaks of dawn had long since brightened into the full light of day when the first sign of a break came in the deadlock between the two armies. Little by little, the Danes began to retreat.

Guthrum, who knew the mind of Halfdan very well, rallied his men to him and held them together as they slowly let themselves be pushed back by the West Saxons. Erlend, who had been as astonished as anyone by Alfred’s attack, and who had been fighting alongside his uncle’s hird, was surprised to find that their men were retreating. He said so to the man beside him.

“We’ll lure them out of formation,” the man grunted to him, his eyes on Guthrum, not on Erlend. “As soon as the jarl gives the signal, see …”

And all of a sudden Guthrum’s column broke. All around him Erlend saw men beginning to turn and flee. “Come along, you little fool!” someone shouted at him, and then Erlend too turned and followed the Danes as they raced from the field, evidently in fear of their lives.

Ethelnoth was commanding the men opposing Guthrum, though the fighting had been so haphazard and spread out over the littered field that it was truer to say that each man was commanding himself. Consequently, when Guthrum’s men turned to flee, there was little Ethelnoth could do to stop his own men from racing in hasty pursuit. After a moment’s hesitation, the ealdorman followed as well. Then Halfdan’s men began to run from the meadow, and the rest of the West Saxons, flaming with the fire of unexpected victory, tore after.

Alfred swore with frustration. But there was nothing he could do to halt his overeager thanes. In too short a time the meadow was emptied of all but the dead and the dying. All Alfred could hope for was that the Danes were indeed in flight, that this was not another ruse such as they had played on the West Saxons at Meretun.

Surely it could not be, he thought desperately as he stood on the battlefield surrounded only by his personal hearthband. The Danes had been thoroughly surprised. They had not had time to prepare any trick maneuvers. Surely this time they had really been put to flight.

“We beat them!” Edgar, the bearer of the dragon banner, was in no doubt about the outcome of the day.

“Do you not wish to join in the pursuit, my lord?” asked Wilfred, obviously fretting to join the hunt himself.

“No. The ealdormen will command their followers.” Alfred looked around. There were perhaps fifty of his own men left on the field. Many faces were looking openly disappointed at his decision. Alfred spoke very crisply. “We will load as many of our wounded as possible onto the Danish horses. Then I want you to ride for Dorchester.”

“Now, my lord?” Wilfred was clearly bewildered. “Would it not be best to care for the wounded first, without moving them?”

“Now,” Alfred repeated. His face did not look triumphant; it looked worried. “I want the wounded away from here. And I want as many of the Danish horses as we can manage to take.” He looked from one dirt-and-blood-smeared face to the next. His own expression was at once both fierce and bleak. “Quickly,” he said.

The thanes moved, half going to find bridles from among the litter in the Danish tents, the other half beginning the gruesome job of sorting out those who were wounded but able to ride from those who would have to be left behind.

Within an hour they had mounted fifty men. Alfred sent the party off, escorted by twenty of his own thanes, each of whom was leading two more horses. Then Alfred said to the thanes remaining with him, “Catch and bridle as many horses as you can,” and they set to work.

Two hours after the Danish retreat had begun, the tattered remnant of the West Saxon army began trickling into the meadow. The Danes had indeed waited until their enemies were hopelessly spread out, then gathered and turned and cut them down. Fewer than four hundred men made it back to the meadow, and they found their king awaiting them with a supply of bridled horses. “Ride for Dorchester,” each was told, and the West Saxon thanes asked no questions, but mounted and fled down the Roman road to the south.