Sword of Kings

‘Danes, Saxons, Irish, Frisians, Norsemen, and everything in between.’ I put two shillings on a barrel that was used as their table. I was not surprised to find Danes here, they had invaded this part of Cent years before and many had stayed, had married Centish women, and adopted Christianity. ‘One of those,’ I said, nodding at the silver shillings, ‘is for sheltering us. The other is for opening your mouth.’

‘My mouth?’ he was puzzled.

‘To tell me what’s happening here,’ I said as I took Serpent-Breath and my helmet from the big leather bag.

‘Happening?’ Kalf asked nervously, watching as I buckled the big sword at my waist.

‘In the town,’ I said, nodding southwards. Ora and its small harbour lay a short walk from Fæfresham itself, which was built on the higher ground inland. ‘And those men in red cloaks,’ I went on, ‘how many are they?’

‘Three crews.’

‘Ninety men?’

‘About that, lord.’ Kalf had heard Berg address me as ‘lord’.

‘Three crews,’ I repeated. ‘How many are here?’

‘There are twenty-eight men in the tavern, lord,’ Kalf’s wife answered confidently and, when I looked enquiringly at her, she nodded. ‘I had to cook for the bastards, lord. There are twenty-eight.’

Twenty-eight men to guard the ships. Our story of being Frisian slave-traders must have convinced Wighelm or else he would surely have tried to stop us landing. Or possibly, knowing his small force could not fight my much larger crew, he was being cautious, first by insisting we landed on the creek’s far side from the tavern, and then by sending a messenger south to Fæfresham. ‘So the rest of the crews are in Fæfresham?’ I asked Kalf.

‘We don’t know, lord.’

‘So tell me what you do know.’

Two weeks before, he said, at the last full moon, a ship had come from Lundene carrying a group of women, a small boy, two babies, and a half-dozen men. They had gone to Fæfresham, he knew, and the women and children had vanished into the convent. Four of the men had stayed in the town, the other two had purchased horses and ridden away. Then, just three days ago, the three ships with their red-cloaked crews had arrived in the harbour, and most of the newcomers had gone south to the town. ‘They don’t tell us what they’re doing here, lord.’

‘They’re not nice!’ the wife put in.

‘Nor are we,’ I said grimly.

I could only guess what had happened, though it was not hard. Eadgifu’s plan had plainly been betrayed and Æthelhelm had sent men to thwart her. The priest who came to Bebbanburg had told me that she had endowed a convent in Fæfresham, and Æthelhelm might well have assumed she would flee there and have sent men to trap her. ‘Are the women and children still in Fæfresham?’ I asked Kalf.

‘We haven’t heard that they’ve left,’ he said uncertainly.

‘But you’d have heard if the men in red cloaks had invaded the convent?’

Kalf’s wife made the sign of the cross. ‘We’d have heard that, lord!’ she said grimly.

So the king still lived, or at least the news of his death had yet to reach Fæfresham. It was obvious what Æthelhelm’s men had come to do in Cent, but they would not dare lay hands on Queen Eadgifu and her sons until they were certain Edward was dead. The king had recovered before, and while he lived he still possessed the power of the throne and there would be trouble if he recovered again and then discovered his wife had been forcibly detained by Æthelhelm’s men. Thunder hammered close and the wind seemed to shake the small cottage. ‘Is there a way to reach Fæfresham,’ I asked Kalf, ‘without being seen from the tavern across the water?’

He frowned for a moment. ‘There’s a drainage ditch back yonder,’ he pointed eastwards. ‘Follow that south, lord, and you’ll find reed beds. They’ll hide you.’

‘What about the creek?’ I asked. ‘Do we need to cross it to reach the town?’

‘There’s a bridge,’ Kalf’s wife said.

‘And the bridge might be guarded,’ I said, though I doubted any guards would be alert in this filthy weather.

‘It’ll be low tide soon,’ Kalf assured me, ‘you can wade it.’

‘Don’t tell me we’re going back into this rain,’ Finan said.

‘We’re going back into this rain. Thirty of us. You want to stay and guard Spearhafoc?’

‘I want to watch what you’re doing. I like watching crazy people.’

‘Do we take shields?’ Berg asked, more sensibly.

I thought about that. We had to cross the creek, and shields were heavy, and my plan was to turn back once we were on the far bank and rid ourselves of Wighelm and his men. The fight, I thought, would be inside the tavern and I did not intend to give the enemy time to equip themselves for battle. In a small room the large shields would be an encumbrance, not a help. ‘No shields,’ I said.

It was madness. Not just to go into the afternoon’s storm and wade through a flooding ditch, but to be here at all. It was an easy excuse to say I was trapped by my oath to Æthelstan, but I could have discharged that oath by simply riding with a handful of followers to join Æthelstan’s forces in Mercia. Instead I was wading through a mucky ditch, soaked to the skin, cold, deep inside a country that thought me an enemy, and relying on a fickle queen to let me fulfil my oath.

Eadgifu had failed. If what the priest had told me was true she had come south to raise forces from her brother Sigulf, the Ealdorman of Cent, and instead she was inside a convent that was ringed by her enemies. Those enemies would wait until the king died before they seized her, but seize her they would and then arrange for the death of her two young sons. She had claimed to be making a pilgrimage to Contwaraburg, but Æthelhelm, who was staying close to the dying king, had seen through that pretence, he had sent men to find her, and, I suspected, despatched more men to persuade Sigulf that any attempt to support his sister would be met with overwhelming force. So Æthelhelm had won.

Except Æthelhelm did not know I was in Cent. That was a small advantage.

The ditch led south. For a time we waded with the water up to our waists, well hidden from Ora by the thick reeds. I tripped twice on eel traps, cursed the weather, but after a half mile or so the ditch bent east to skirt higher ground and we could clamber from the mucky water and cross a soggy pasture only to see the creek in front of us. The track from the harbour to Fæfresham lay beyond the creek. No one moved there. To my left was Fæfresham, hidden behind wind-tossed trees and sheeting rain, and to my right the harbour, still hidden by the small swell of land we had just crossed.

Kalf had said the creek could be waded at low tide, which was soon, but the rain was flooding from a dozen ditches, and the creek’s water was running fast and high. Lightning split the dark clouds ahead of us and the thunder crashed across the low clouds. ‘I hope that’s a sign from your god,’ Finan grumbled. ‘How in hell do we cross that?’

‘Lord!’ Berg called from my left. ‘A fish trap!’ He was pointing upstream where water churned and foamed around willow stakes.

‘That’s how we cross,’ I told Finan.

It was hard, it was wet, and it was treacherous. The willow stakes with their netting were not made to support a man, but they gave us a tenuous safety as we struggled through the creek. At its deepest the water came to my chest and tried to drag me under. I stumbled in the creek’s centre and would have gone underwater if it had not been for Folcbald hauling me upright. I was grateful none of us was carrying a heavy iron-rimmed shield. The wind screeched. It was already late in the day, the hidden sun was sinking, the rain was in our faces, the thunder was crashing above, and we crawled out of the water, sodden and chilled. ‘We go that way,’ I pointed right, northwards.

The first thing to do was to retrieve eighteen shillings and to destroy the ship guards in Ora’s tavern. We were between those men and Fæfresham now. It was possible that Wighelm had warned the larger force in the town of our arrival and that his few men would be reinforced, but I doubted it. Weather like this persuaded men to stay near the hearth, so perhaps Thor was on my side. I had no sooner thought that than a deafening clap of thunder sounded and the skies were ripped by jagged light. ‘We’ll be warm soon,’ I promised my men.

It was a short walk to the harbour. The track was raised on an embankment and floodwaters lapped at the sides. ‘I need prisoners,’ I said.

I half drew Serpent-Breath then let her fall back into her fleece-lined scabbard. ‘You know what this storm means?’ Finan had to shout to make himself heard above the wind’s noise and the pelting rain.

‘That Thor is on our side!’

‘It means the king has died!’

I stepped over a flooded rut. ‘There was no storm when Alfred died.’

‘Edward is dead!’ Finan insisted. ‘He must have died yesterday!’

‘We’ll find out,’ I said, unconvinced.

And then we were in the outskirts of the village, the street lined by small hovels. The tavern was in front of us. It had sheds at the back, probably stables or storage. The wind streamed the hearth-smoke eastwards from the tavern’s roof. ‘Folcbald,’ I said, ‘you keep two men with you and stop anyone escaping.’ Kalf had told me the tavern had only two doors, a front and a back, but men could easily escape through the shuttered windows. Folcbald’s task was to stop any fugitive from reaching Fæfresham. I could see the masts of Æthelhelm’s three ships swaying in the wind above the roof. My plan was simple enough, to burst in through the tavern’s back door and overwhelm the men inside, who, I assumed, would be huddled as close to the flaming hearth as possible.

We were about fifty paces from the tavern’s back door when a man came outside. He hunched against the rain, hurried to a shed, struggled with the latched door and, as he pulled it open, turned and saw us. For a heartbeat he just gazed, then he ran back inside. I swore.

I shouted at my men to hurry, but we were so cold, so drenched, that we could manage little more than a fast, stumbling walk, and Wighelm’s men, warm and dry, reacted swiftly. Four men appeared first, each carrying a shield and spear. More men followed, no doubt cursing that they were forced into the storm, but all carrying shields which showed the dark outline of a leaping stag, Æthelhelm’s symbol. I had planned a bloody tavern brawl, and instead the enemy was making a shield wall between the sheds. They faced us with levelled spears, and we had none. They were protected by shields, and we had none.