The Edge of Light (46 page)

“The West Saxons have ships also.” Erlend had pointed this out numerous times to Guthrum, but the Danish leader would never accept the idea that any nation could be a serious threat to the Vikings on the sea.

Guthrum’s reaction now was the same as always. He shrugged his big shoulders and smiled mockingly. “You overestimate the talents of this king, Erlend. I think sometimes he must have put a spell on you. If you remember, the last time we set foot in his kingdom, he had to buy a peace from us. Yet you persist in speaking as if he were invincible.” The blue eyes glittered bright as the sun-lit sea. “I think sometimes you were more comfortable among the West Saxons than you are among your own people.”

“I am a Dane, Uncle,” Erlend replied stiffly. He could feel the flags of color flying in his cheeks. “I am Erlend Olafson of Nasgaard, nor am I like to forget that.”

There was a moment of tense silence as uncle and nephew stared at each other with barely concealed hostility. Then Guthrum said, “You do not have Nasgaard yet, Erlend.”

Erlend quirked an eyebrow in unconscious imitation of one of Alfred’s characteristic gestures. “That is because you have not yet taken Wessex, my lord,” he answered drawlingly. “Did not Halfdan say you would lend me the strength of your arm when once you have finished your work here? And did not Halfdan also say that he himself would stand my friend?”

Blue eyes and green met and locked in silent combat. Guthrum had not been overly pleased by that promise of Halfdan’s. Then he said, “We will be finished here shortly, Erlend, I promise you that.” Guthrum took two steps closer to Erlend, so that he seemed to tower over the younger man. “And when that time comes, I shall sacrifice this West Saxon king to Odin.” His teeth bared in his white wolf smile, he looked down at the nephew whose eyes were so far below the level of his own and added with palpable pleasure, “And you shall watch me do it.”

One week later a fleet of long ships sailed into Poole harbor. At first the cry from the Danish camp was one of triumph. Then they saw the Wessex banner of the Golden Dragon.

“There must be a hundred ships out there!” Guthrum said in astonishment. “Name of the Raven, where did he get a hundred ships?”

“I told you, Uncle,” Erlend replied. “He built them.”

“You never told me he was building so many!”

“It has been three years since I left Wessex. He has had plenty of time to enlarge his fleet.”

Guthrum squinted into the sun. “But they are long ships. Big ships. Name of the Raven, they are bigger than ours!”

“I told you that too. He brought in the Frisians to build them. And there are Frisians sailing them too, not just West Saxon farmers.”

“Our fleet numbers near one hundred and fifty,” Guthrum said. But his face was grim. He added, “And no Frisian yet has been able to outsail a Dane.”

“True. But if there is a fight, we are like to lose some of our supplies.”

Guthrum did not reply, only turned on his heel and strode away.

One month went by and still there was no sign of the Danish fleet. Nor did there appear to be any lessening in the numbers of the West Saxon fyrd.

Guthrum gave orders for raiding parties to go out from Wareham to bring in food from the countryside.

“Destroy whatever you can put to the torch,” he said to his men. “Rape their women. We must begin to make our presence felt here if we are not to find ourselves in a trap.”

Some of the Danish raiders got through, and pillars of smoke were seen in the surrounding countryside. The weeks passed and it seemed to Erlend’s searching eyes that the West Saxons were fewer in number than they had been before.

“The sheep will need shearing,” Erlend said to his uncle. “That is not a job that can be left for the women. Alfred will have trouble holding his men come sheep-shearing month.”

“Where in the name of Odin are our ships? They were to come up the Thames, around the Dover Narrows, and thence to Wareham. What has happened to delay them so? Harald Bjornson knows I am depending upon him for supplies. He would not tarry unless something has happened to disable his fleet.”

Erlend could not answer. No one in the Danish camp could. But one fact was clear to all: without their ships they would not have enough food and fodder to survive. They would have to break out of Wareham, and to do that they would have to face a battle with the West Saxon army.

“If we can hold out but a few weeks more,” Guthrum said now to Erlend, the squint lines about his eyes graven deep in the tanned skin. “In a few weeks we must see our ships. And his army will be gravely depleted. A few more weeks, then can we face them in open battle.” It was an implicit admission that in order to be assured of victory, the Danes needed to have the numbers on their side.

“We can eat the horses if we must,” said Erlend, who knew what store his uncle set by his horses.

Guthrum swore viciously and went off to stare once more toward the sea.

Brand asked Alfred, “How much longer do you think he can hold out?” The two were standing together looking across the Frome toward the walls of Wareham.

“He has already held out long enough,” Alfred answered. His hair gleamed in the bright June sun. “We are down to less than half our original number of men. We have disguised our lack of numbers well, else would he have attacked by now, but I dare not wait any longer. Ethelred did nobly in his blockade of the river at London, but the Danes are about to get their ships through. I can wait no longer.”

“What are you going to do, my lord?” Brand asked.

“Sue for peace,” said Alfred,

Brand looked at the expression on his king’s face and prudently made no reply.

Erlend and Guthrum stood on the walls of Wareham and watched as the four West Saxons swam their horses across the river. The horses touched bottom, and then dry land. The four men paused to align themselves abreast and then began to trot slowly toward the walls of Wareham.

The two men on the outside carried banners. One was the Golden Dragon banner of Wessex, the other was plain and white. The West Saxons halted outside the range of arrowshot and waited.

“What can they want?” Guthrum asked Erlend.

“I do not know. They want to talk, that much at least is clear. You had better send someone to find out, Uncle.”

Guthrum grunted, turned, and shouted for one of the men who spoke a little Saxon to ride out with an escort to see what it was the West Saxons wanted.

Five minutes passed. Erlend, staring intently at the West Saxons, thought he recognized Edgar. Then the gates of Wareham opened and four Danes came trotting out. The West Saxons waited where they were. In a minute the two groups had come together.

More minutes passed. “Ivor does not speak Saxon all that well,” Erlend muttered, and did not notice the sharp look Guthrum cast his way.

Finally the Danes turned back toward the walls of Wareham and the West Saxon thanes wheeled to return to their own camp on the far side of the river. Guthrum scrambled down from the wall and strode off to his booth. Erlend did not hesitate to follow.

“They want a peace. That much I understood,” Ivor, the man who was reporting to Guthrum, said. “If we agree, we are to show a white banner from our western wall.”

“A peace?” Guthrum began to pace up and down the floor of his booth. “He must have lost more men than we thought.”

“Or knows he will lose them,” Erlend said.

“What has he offered?” said Guthrum.

“My lord, I do not know. We could not speak together very well. I have only a few words of Saxon.” Ivor grinned. “And they are not the words of peace.”

Guthrum’s thick blond brows were drawn together. “Name of the Raven, how are we to make peace if neither speaks the other’s language? The few men we had who knew Saxon have gone north with Halfdan.”

“There is Lord Erlend, my lord,” one of the men suggested. “He and the Mercian speak together all the time.”

Erlend felt Guthrum’s bright blue eyes resting on his face. He strove to keep his expression unreadable. “Or there is Athulf himself,” Erlend said. “Alter two years among us, he speaks Danish with a fairly ready tongue.”

“I would not trust the Mercian,” Guthrum said. “It will have to be you, Nephew.”

Erlend felt sweat break out on his forehead. “Once my identity is known to the West Saxons, I will be useless as a spy.”

Guthrum shrugged. “It cannot be helped. Nor does it seem that we will need you in that guise anyway, Erlend. You have not returned to the West Saxon camp in almost four years’ time. You will be more useful to me as an interpreter. I need to know what he wants.”

Guthrum hung the white banner from the walls of Wareham and watched for Alfred’s reply. The evening sky was still bright with summer sun when the four West Saxons once more crossed the river and waited for the Danish delegation to meet them.

Erlend’s face was impassive as he rode his black stallion across the open space that separated him from Alfred’s men. He had often wondered what Alfred would say if he discovered the truth about the wandering harper he had welcomed into his household. It had been a clever disguise, and thoroughly successful. Erlend ought to be feeling amused and superior now that he was going to confront the men he had so completely fooled.

He was not feeling amused and superior, however. He was feeling ashamed and humiliated. He did not want to be exposed as a fraud in front of the West Saxon thanes.

Elswyth would be hurt when she found out. And Alfred …

It
was
Edgar. Hell.

“My lords,” Erlend said formally in the excellent Saxon that had acquired the touch of a Mercian drawl after two years of conversing only with Athulf, “the Lord Guthrum has sent me to treat with you about a peace.”

Edgar smiled with relief to hear the Saxon. He had not yet recognized the young man on the glossy black stallion. Erlend had taken care with his appearance this day, taken care to look as different from the poor little harper as he possibly could. His brown hair was cut short, Viking-style, and hung in long thick bangs to the tips of his triangular eyebrows. He wore a golden collar about his throat, and great golden rings twisted like serpents on his naked arms above the elbows. His stallion was over sixteen hands in height, enabling him to look down on the men before him.

Edgar said, “I am the voice of the West Saxon king. Alfred has empowered me to treat for a peace.”

The breeze from the river blew the hair on Erlend’s forehead. He said, “If you wish a peace, you must pay for it.”

Edgar was staring at him now, his blue eyes widening in dawning recognition. “Who are you?” the West Saxon demanded abruptly in a suddenly hard voice.

Erlend’s stomach clenched, but outwardly he kept his face impassive. “I am Erlend Olafson of Nasgaard,” he said. “Nephew to the Lord Guthrum.”

“Erlend!”

Now the three thanes with Edgar were staring also. Erlend clenched his jaw, hating them all. “How are you, Edgar?” he said. “It has been a long time since last we met.”

“You are nephew to the Danish leader? You are a Dane?”

“Yes.”

“God in heaven.”

“What does Alfred offer for a peace?” Erlend said, and now the drawl was quite gone from his voice.

Edgar’s eyes narrowed. They did not leave Erlend’s face as he answered, “If the Lord Guthrum will swear a sacred oath to leave the country, the West Saxon king will give him free passage out of Wessex. To further secure this oath, Alfred demands that Guthrum give hostages into his hand, five men of rank in your own army. And the West Saxon king demands the return of the Lord Athulf.”

Erlend showed his teeth in imitation of Guthrum’s smile. “Alfred
demands?”
he said.

“Yes.” Edgar’s face was grim. “You are in a bad case, my lord Erlend.” There was the faintest trace of scorn in the title Edgar bestowed on him. “We have you trapped into Wareham as neatly as ever a fox was trapped in a hole. Four thousand men must eat. Your horses must eat as well. If you do not accept the terms of this peace, we will starve you to your deaths.”

“You will not have the men to keep us penned into Wareham,” Erlend said. “It is sheep-shearing month, Edgar. I know well what happens to the West Saxon fyrds at such a time.” He patted the gleaming satin neck of his stallion. “All the men Alfred will have left to him will be the thanes of his hearthband, and perhaps the hearthbands of some of the ealdormen. And we will still have our four thousand.”

Edgar was looking furious. Erlend glanced up at the Raven banner flying over the heads of the Danish negotiators, then back to Edgar. “Guthrum has sent to be relieved by way of the sea,” he added softly. “You look to lose your fleet as well as your army, Edgar, if you do not make a peace.”

Edgar’s smile was as wolflike as ever Guthrum’s got. “Ethelred of Mercia barricaded the Thames,” he said. “The whole river, for a stretch of five miles, was mined with traps. Your fleet has not been able to get through.”

Erlend’s eyes widened. Then he looked across the Frome to the West Saxon camp. “So that is what has happened to the ships,” He smiled, this time in reluctant admiration. “Alfred is rarely at a loss.”

“Nor is he at a loss now,” Edgar replied. “There will be no peace without the hostages. Or Athulf.”

Erlend thought. In the west the sun was beginning to grow pink. The horses sidled a little and snorted at each other. Erlend’s stallion did not like grays and was objecting to the presence of Edgar’s powerful-looking gelding. Finally Erlend said, “Alfred will have to pay a geld, Edgar. My uncle will never accept his terms without some sort of payment.”

The two men looked at each other. Finally Edgar nodded. “I will tell that to my king.”

Erlend nodded also.

“How much?” Edgar asked.

Erlend thought again, then named a sum that he thought would be acceptable to Guthrum yet reasonable for Alfred. Edgar nodded again. “But we must have the hostages,” he said.

“You shall have your hostages. And Athulf as well. But we must have the geld.”

“I shall tell Alfred,” Edgar said again.

“And I shall tell Guthrum,” Erlend replied. “If we fly the white banner from the walls tomorrow morning, you will know that we have accepted your offer.”