The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings

‘An uncle who is going to give your husband victory,’ I told her, ‘but I need men. And Egbert won’t give me men.’

‘He won’t?’ she asked.

‘He says he needs all his men to guard you.’

‘Give him your best men,’ she said to Egbert in a light, pleasant voice.

‘My lady,’ Egbert said, ‘my orders are to …’

‘You will give him your best men!’ Æthelflaed’s voice was suddenly hard as she stepped from beneath my cloak into the harsh light of the campfires. ‘I am a king’s daughter!’ she said arrogantly, ‘and wife to Mercia’s Ealdorman! And I am demanding that you give Uhtred your best men! Now!’

She had spoken very loudly so that men all across the island were staring at her. Egbert looked offended, but said nothing. He straightened instead and looked stubborn. Pyrlig caught my eye and smiled slyly.

‘None of you have the courage to fight alongside Uhtred?’ Æthelflaed demanded of the watching men. She was fourteen years old, a slight, pale girl, yet in her voice was the lineage of ancient kings. ‘My father would want you to show courage tonight!’ she went on, ‘or am I to return to Wintanceaster and tell my father that you sat by the fires while Uhtred fought?’ This last question was directed at Egbert.

‘Twenty men,’ I pleaded with him.

‘Give him more!’ Æthelflaed said firmly.

‘There’s only room in the boats for forty more,’ I said.

‘Then give him forty!’ Æthelflaed said.

‘Lady,’ Egbert said hesitantly, but stopped when Æthelflaed held up one small hand. She turned to look at me.

‘I can trust you, Lord Uhtred?’ she asked.

It seemed a strange question from a child I had known nearly all her life and I smiled at it. ‘You can trust me,’ I said lightly.

Her face grew harder and her eyes flinty. Perhaps that was the reflection of the fire from her pupils, but I was suddenly aware that this was far more than a child, she was a king’s daughter. ‘My father,’ she said in a clear voice so that others could hear, ‘says you are the best warrior in his service. But he does not trust you.’

There was an awkward silence. Egbert cleared his throat and stared at the ground. ‘I have never let your father down,’ I said harshly.

‘He fears your loyalty is for sale,’ she said.

‘He has my oath,’ I replied, my voice still harsh.

‘And I want it now,’ she demanded and held out a slender hand.

‘What oath?’ I asked.

‘That you keep your oath to my father,’ Æthelflaed said, ‘and that you swear loyalty to Saxon over Dane, and that you will fight for Mercia when Mercia asks it.’

‘My lady,’ I began, appalled at her list of demands.

‘Egbert!’ Æthelflaed interrupted me. ‘You will give Lord Uhtred no men unless he swears to serve Mercia while I live.’

‘No, lady,’ Egbert muttered.

While she lived? Why had she said that? I remember wondering about those words, and I remember, too, thinking that my plan to capture Lundene hung in the balance. Æthelred had stripped me of the forces I needed, and Æthelflaed had the power to restore my numbers, but to win my victory I had to lock myself in yet another oath that I did not want to swear. What did I care for Mercia? But I cared that night about taking men through a bridge of death to prove that I could do it. I cared about reputation, I cared about my name, I cared about fame.

I drew Serpent-Breath, knowing that was why she held out her hand, and I gave the blade to her, hilt first. Then I knelt and I folded my hands around hers that, in turn, were clasped about the hilt of my sword. ‘I swear it, lady,’ I said.

‘You swear,’ she said, ‘that you will serve my father faithfully?’

‘Yes, lady.’

‘And, as I live, you will serve Mercia?’

‘As you live, lady,’ I said, kneeling in the mud, and wondering what a fool I was. I wanted to be in the north, I wanted to be free of Alfred’s piety, I wanted to be with my friends, yet here I was, swearing loyalty to Alfred’s ambitions and to his golden-haired daughter. ‘I swear it,’ I said, and gave her hands a slight squeeze as a signal of my truthfulness.

‘Give him men, Egbert,’ Æthelflaed ordered.

He gave me thirty and, to give Egbert his due, he gave me his fit men, the young ones, leaving his older and sick warriors to guard Æthelflaed and the camp. So now I led over seventy men and those men included Father Pyrlig. ‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said to Æthelflaed.

‘You could reward me,’ she said, and once again sounded child-like, her solemnity gone and her old mischief back.

‘How?’

‘Take me with you?’

‘Never,’ I said harshly.

She frowned at my tone and looked up into my eyes. ‘Are you angry with me?’ she asked in a soft voice.

‘With myself, lady,’ I said and turned away.

‘Uhtred!’ She sounded unhappy.

‘I will keep the oaths, lady,’ I said, and I was angry that I had taken them again, but at least they had provided me with seventy men to take a city, seventy men on board two boats that pushed away from the creek into the Temes’s strong current.

I was on board Ralla’s boat, the same ship that we had captured from Jarrel, the Dane whose hanged body had long been reduced to a skeleton. Ralla was at the stern, leaning on the steering-oar. ‘Not sure we should be doing this, lord,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

He spat over the side into the black river. ‘Water’s running too fast. It’ll be spilling through the gap like a waterfall. Even at slack water, lord, that gap can be wicked.’

‘Take it straight,’ I said, ‘and pray to whatever god you believe in.’

‘If we can even see the gap,’ he said gloomily. He peered behind, looking for a glimpse of Osric’s boat, but it was swallowed in the darkness. ‘I’ve seen it done on a falling tide,’ Ralla said, ‘but that was in daylight, and the river wasn’t in spate.’

‘The tide’s falling?’ I asked.

‘Like a stone,’ Ralla said gloomily.

‘Then pray,’ I said curtly.

I touched the hammer amulet, then the hilt of Serpent-Breath as the boat gathered speed on the surging current. The riverbanks were far off. Here and there was a glimmer of light, evidence of a fire smouldering in a house, while ahead, under the moonless sky, was a dull glow smeared with a black veil, and that, I knew, was the new Saxon Lundene. The glow came from the sullen fires in the town and the veil was the smoke of those fires, and I knew that somewhere beneath that veil Æthelred would be marshalling his men for their advance across the valley of the Fleot and up to the old Roman wall. Sigefrid, Erik and Haesten would know he was there because someone would have run from the new town to warn the old. Danes, Norsemen and Frisians, even some masterless Saxons, would be rousing themselves and hurrying to the old city’s ramparts.