The Last Kingdom Series Books 1-3: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, The Lords of the North

The journey south was wearisome, as all winter journeys are. For a time we sheltered at an upland homestead near Meslach and the folk there took us for outlaws. We arrived at their hovel in an evening of sleet and wind, both of us half frozen, and we paid for food and shelter with a few links from the chain of the silver crucifix Ælswith had given me, and in the night the two eldest sons came to collect the rest of our silver, but Brida and I were awake, half expecting such an attempt, and I had Serpent-Breath and Brida had Wasp-Sting and we threatened to geld both boys. The family was friendly after that, or at least scared into docility, believing me when I told them that Brida was a sorceress. They were pagans, some of the many English heretics left in the high hills, and they had no idea that the Danes were swarming over England. They lived far from any village, grunted prayers to Thor and Odin, and sheltered us for six weeks and we worked for our keep by chopping wood, helping their ewes give birth and then standing guard over the sheep pens to keep the wolves at bay.

In early spring we moved on. We avoided Hreapandune, for that was where Burghred kept his court, the same court to which the hapless Egbert of Northumbria had fled, and there were many Danes settled around the town. I did not fear Danes, I could talk to them in their own tongue, knew their jests and even liked them, but if word got back to Eoferwic that Uhtred of Bebbanburg still lived then I feared Kjartan would put a reward on my head. So I asked at every settlement about Ealdorman Æthelwulf who had died fighting the Danes at Readingum, and I learned he had lived at a place called Deoraby, but that the Danes had taken his lands, and his younger brother had gone to Cirrenceastre that lay in the far southern parts of Mercia, very close to the West Saxon border, and that was good because the Danes were thickest in Mercia’s north, and so we went to Cirrenceastre and found it was another Roman town, well walled with stone and timber, and that Æthelwulf’s brother, Æthelred, was now Ealdorman and lord of the place.

We arrived when he sat in court and we waited in his hall among the petitioners and oath-takers. We watched as two men were flogged and a third branded on the face and sent into outlawry for cattle-thieving, and then a steward brought us forward, thinking we had come to seek redress for a grievance, and the steward told us to bow, and I refused and the man tried to make me bend at the waist and I struck him in the face, and that got Æthelred’s attention. He was a tall man, well over forty years old, almost hairless except for a huge beard, and as gloomy as Guthrum. When I struck the steward he beckoned to his guards who were lolling at the hall’s edges. ‘Who are you?’ he growled at me.

‘I am the Ealdorman Uhtred,’ I said, and the title stilled the guards and made the steward back nervously away. ‘I am the son of Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I went on, ‘and of Æthelgifu, his wife. I am your nephew.’

He stared at me. I must have looked a wreck for I was travel-stained and long-haired and ragged, but I had two swords and monstrous pride. ‘You are Æthelgifu’s boy?’ he asked.

‘Your sister’s son,’ I said, and even then I was not certain this was the right family, but it was, and Ealdorman Æthelred made the sign of the cross in memory of his younger sister, whom he hardly remembered, and waved the guards back to the hall’s sides and asked me what I wanted.

‘Shelter,’ I said, and he nodded grudgingly. I told him I had been a prisoner of the Danes ever since my father’s death, and he accepted that willingly enough, but in truth he was not very interested in me, indeed my arrival was a nuisance for we were two more mouths to feed, but family imposes obligation, and Ealdorman Æthelred met his. He also tried to have me killed.

His lands, which stretched to the River Sæfern in the west, were being raided by Britons from Wales. The Welsh were old enemies, the ones who had tried to stop our ancestors from taking England, indeed their name for England is Lloegyr, which means the Lost Lands, and they were forever raiding or thinking of raiding or singing songs about raiding, and they had a great hero called Arthur who was supposed to be sleeping in his grave and one day he was going to rise up and lead the Welsh to a great victory over the English and so take back the Lost Lands, though so far that has not happened.

About a month after I arrived Æthelred heard that a Welsh war-band had crossed the Sæfern and were taking cattle from his lands near Fromtun and he rode to clear them out. He went westwards with fifty men, but ordered the chief of his household troops, a warrior called Tatwine, to block their retreat near the ancient Roman town of Gleawecestre. He gave Tatwine a force of twenty men that included me. ‘You’re a big lad,’ Æthelred said to me before he left, ‘have you ever fought in a shield wall?’

I hesitated, wanting to lie, but decided that poking a sword between men’s legs at Readingum was not the same thing. ‘No, lord,’ I said.

‘Time you learned. That sword must be good for something, where did you get it?’

‘It was my father’s, lord,’ I lied, for I did not want to explain that I had not been a prisoner of the Danes, nor that the sword had been a gift, for Æthelred would have expected me to give it to him. ‘It is the only thing of my father’s I have,’ I added pathetically, and he grunted, waved me away, and told Tatwine to put me in the shield wall if it came to a fight.

I know that because Tatwine told me so when everything was over. Tatwine was a huge man, as tall as me, with a chest like a blacksmith and thick arms on which he made marks with ink and a needle. The marks were just blotches, but he boasted that each one was a man he had killed in battle, and I once tried to count them, but gave up at thirty-eight. His sleeves hid the rest. He was not happy to have me in his band of warriors, and even less happy when Brida insisted on accompanying me, but I told him she had sworn an oath to my father never to leave my side and that she was a cunning woman who knew spells that would confuse the enemy, and he believed both lies and probably thought that once I was dead his men could have their joy of Brida while he took Serpent-Breath back to Æthelred.

The Welsh had crossed the Sæfern high up, then turned south into the lush water meadows where cattle grew fat. They liked to come in fast and go out fast, before the Mercians could gather forces, but Æthelred had heard of their coming in good time and, as he rode west, Tatwine led us north to the bridge across the Sæfern that was the quickest route home to Wales.

The raiders came straight into that trap. We arrived at the bridge at dusk, slept in a field, were awake before dawn and, just as the sun rose, saw the Welshmen and their stolen cattle coming towards us. They made an effort to ride further north, but their horses were tired, ours were fresh, and they realised there was no escape and so they returned to the bridge. We did the same and, dismounted, formed the shield wall. The Welsh made their wall. There were twenty-eight of them, all savage-looking men with shaggy hair and long beards and tattered coats, but their weapons looked well cared for and their shields were stout.

Tatwine spoke some of their language and he told them that if they surrendered now they would be treated mercifully by his lord. Their only response was to howl at us, and one of them turned around, lowered his breeches, and showed us his dirty backside, which passed as a Welsh insult.

Nothing happened then. They were in their shield wall on the road, and our shield wall blocked the bridge, and they shouted insults and Tatwine forbade our men to shout back, and once or twice it seemed as if the Welsh were going to run to their horses and try to escape by galloping northwards, but every time they hinted at such a move, Tatwine ordered the servants to bring up our horses, and the Welsh understood that we would pursue and overtake them and so they went back to the shield wall and jeered at us for not assaulting them. Tatwine was not such a fool. The Welshmen outnumbered us which meant that they could overlap us, but by staying on the bridge our flanks were protected by its Roman parapets and he wanted them to come at us there. He placed me in the centre of the line, and then stood behind me. I understood later that he was ready to step into my place when I fell. I had an old shield with a loose handle loaned to me by my uncle.

Tatwine again tried to persuade them to surrender, promising that only half of them would be put to death, but as the other half would all lose a hand and an eye, it was not a tempting offer. Still they waited, and might have waited until nightfall had not some local people come along and one of them had a bow and some arrows, and he began shooting at the Welsh who, by now, had been drinking steadily through the morning. Tatwine had given us all some ale, but not much.

I was nervous. More than nervous, I was terrified. I had no armour, while the rest of Tatwine’s men were in mail or good leather. Tatwine had a helmet, I had hair. I expected to die, but I remembered my lessons and slung Serpent-Breath on my back, strapping her sword belt around my throat. A sword is much quicker to draw over the shoulder, and I expected to begin the fight with Wasp-Sting. My throat was dry, a muscle in my right leg quivered, my belly felt sour, but entwined with that fear was excitement. This was what life had led to, a shield wall, and if I survived this then I would be a warrior.

The arrows flew one after the other, mostly thumping into shields, but one lucky shaft slid past a shield and sank into a man’s chest and he fell back, and suddenly the Welsh leader lost patience and gave a great scream. And they charged.

It was a small shield wall, not a great battle. A cattle skirmish, not a clash of armies, but it was my first shield wall, and I instinctively rattled my shield against my neighbours’ shields, to make sure they touched, and I lowered Wasp-Sting, meaning to bring her up under the rim, and I crouched slightly to receive the charge, and the Welsh were howling like madmen, a noise meant to scare us, but I was too intent on doing what I had been taught to be distracted by the howls.

‘Now!’ Tatwine shouted and we all lunged our shields forward and there was a blow on mine like Ealdwulf’s hammer thumping the anvil, and I was aware of an axe swinging overhead to split my skull and I ducked, raising the shield, and stabbed Wasp-Sting up into the man’s groin. She went smooth and true, just as Toki had taught me, and that groin-stroke is a wicked blow, one of the killer strikes, and the man screamed a terrible scream, just like a woman in childbirth, and the short sword was stuck in his body, blood pouring down her hilt and the axe tumbled down my back as I straightened. I drew Serpent-Breath across my left shoulder and swung at the man attacking my right-hand neighbour. It was a good stroke, straight into the skull, and I ripped her back, letting Ealdwulf’s edge do its work, and the man with Wasp-Sting in his crotch was under my feet so I stamped on his face. I was shouting now, shouting in Danish, shouting their deaths, and it was all suddenly easy, and I stepped over my first victim to finish off the second, and that meant I had broken our shield wall, which did not matter because Tatwine was there to guard the space. I was in the Welsh space now, but with two dead men beside me, and a third man turned on me, sword coming in a great scything stroke that I met with the shield boss and, as he tried to cover his body with his own shield, I lunged Serpent-Breath into his throat, ripped her out, swung her all the way around and she clanged against a shield behind me, and I turned, all savagery and anger now, and I charged a fourth man, throwing him down with my weight, and he began to shout for mercy and received none.

The joy of it. The sword joy. I was dancing with joy, joy seething in me, the battle joy that Ragnar had so often spoken of, the warrior joy. If a man has not known it, then he is no man. It was no battle, that, no proper slaughter, just a thief-killing, but it was my first fight and the gods had moved in me, had given my arm speed and my shield strength, and when it was done, and when I danced in the blood of the dead, I knew I was good. Knew I was more than good. I could have conquered the world at that moment and my only regret was that Ragnar had not seen me, but then I thought he might be watching from Valhalla and I raised Serpent-Breath to the clouds and shouted his name. I have seen other young men come from their first fights with that same joy, and I have buried them after their next battle. The young are fools and I was young. But I was good.

The cattle thieves were finished. Twelve were dead or so badly wounded as to be near death and the others had fled. We caught them easily enough and, one by one, we killed them, and afterwards I went back to the man whose shield had kissed mine when the walls clashed and I had to put my right foot into his bloody crotch to drag Wasp-Sting free of his clinging flesh, and at that moment all I wanted was more enemies to kill.

‘Where did you learn to fight, boy?’ Tatwine asked me.

I turned on him as though he were an enemy, pride flaring in my face and Wasp-Sting twitching as if she were hungry for blood. ‘I am an Ealdorman of Northumbria,’ I told him.

He paused, wary of me, then nodded. ‘Yes, lord,’ he said, then reached forward and felt the muscles of my right arm. ‘Where did you learn to fight?’ he asked, leaving off the insulting ‘boy’.

‘I watched the Danes.’

‘Watched,’ he said tonelessly. He looked into my eyes, then grinned and embraced me. ‘God love me,’ he said, ‘but you’re a savage one. Your first shield wall?’

‘My first,’ I admitted.

‘But not your last, I dare say, not your last.’

He was right about that.

I have sounded immodest, but I have told the truth. These days I employ poets to sing my praises, but only because that is what a lord is supposed to do, though I often wonder why a man should get paid for mere words. These word-stringers make nothing, grow nothing, kill no enemies, catch no fish and raise no cattle. They just take silver in exchange for words, which are free anyway. It is a clever trick, but in truth they are about as much use as priests.

I did fight well, that is no lie, but I had spent my growing years dreaming of little else, and I was young, and the young are reckless in battle, and I was strong and quick, and the enemy were tired. We left their severed heads on the bridge parapets as a greeting for other Britons coming to visit their Lost Lands, then we rode south to meet Æthelred who was doubtless disappointed to find me alive and still hungry, but he accepted Tatwine’s verdict that I could be useful as a fighter.

Not that there would be much battle, except against outlaws and cattle thieves. Æthelred would have liked to fight the Danes because he fretted under their rule, but he feared their revenge and so took care not to offend them. That was easy enough, for Danish rule was light in our part of Mercia, but every few weeks some Danes would come to Cirrenceastre and demand cattle or food or silver and he had little choice but to pay. In truth he did not look north to the impotent King Burghred as his lord, but south to Wessex, and had I possessed any intelligence in those days I would have understood that Alfred was extending his influence over those southern parts of Mercia. The influence was not obvious, no West Saxon soldiers patrolled the country, but Alfred’s messengers were forever riding and talking to the chief men, persuading them to bring their warriors south if the Danes attacked Wessex again.

I should have been wary of those West Saxon envoys, but I was too caught up in the intrigues of Æthelred’s household to pay them any notice. The Ealdorman did not like me much, but his eldest son, also called Æthelred, detested me. He was a year younger than I, but very conscious of his dignity and a great hater of the Danes. He was also a great hater of Brida, mainly because he tried to hump her and got a knee in the groin for his trouble, and after that she was put to work in Ealdorman Æthelred’s kitchens and she warned me, the very first day, not to touch the gruel. I did not, but the rest of the table all suffered from liquid bowels for the next two days thanks to the elderberries and iris root she had added to the pot. The younger Æthelred and I were forever quarrelling, though he was more careful after I beat him with my fists the day I found him whipping Brida’s dog.

I was a nuisance to my uncle. I was too young, too big, too loud, too proud, too undisciplined, but I was also a family member and a lord, and so Ealdorman Æthelred endured me and was happy to let me chase Welsh raiders with Tatwine. We almost always failed to catch them.

I came back from one such pursuit late at night and let a servant rub down the horse while I went to find food and instead, of all people, discovered Father Willibald in the hall where he was sitting close to the embers of the fire. I did not recognise him at first, nor did he know me when I walked in all sweaty with a leather coat, long boots, a shield and two swords. I just saw a figure by the fire. ‘Anything to eat there?’ I asked, hoping I would not have to light a tallow candle and grope through the servants sleeping in the kitchen.

‘Uhtred,’ he said, and I turned and peered through the gloom. Then he whistled like a blackbird and I recognised him. ‘Is that Brida with you?’ the young priest asked.

She was also in leather, with a Welsh sword strapped to her waist. Nihtgenga ran to Willibald, whom he had never met, and allowed himself to be stroked. Tatwine and the other warriors all tramped in, but Willibald ignored them. ‘I hope you’re well, Uhtred?’

‘I’m well, father,’ I said, ‘and you?’

‘I’m very well,’ he said.

He smiled, obviously wanting me to ask why he had come to Æthelred’s hall, but I pretended to be uninterested. ‘You didn’t get into trouble for losing us?’ I asked him instead.

‘The Lady Ælswith was very angry,’ he admitted, ‘but Alfred seemed not to mind. He did chide Father Beocca though.’

‘Beocca? Why?’

‘Because Beocca had persuaded him you wanted to escape the Danes, and Beocca was wrong. Still, no harm done.’ He smiled. ‘And now Alfred has sent me to find you.’

I squatted close to him. It was late summer, but the night was surprisingly chill so I threw another log onto the fire so that sparks flew up and a puff of smoke drifted into the high beams. ‘Alfred sent you,’ I said flatly. ‘He still wants to teach me to read?’

‘He wants to see you, lord.’

I looked at him suspiciously. I called myself a lord, and so I was by birthright, but I was well imbued with the Danish idea that lordship was earned, not given, and I had not earned it yet. Still, Willibald was showing respect. ‘Why does he want to see me?’ I asked.

‘He would talk with you,’ Willibald said, ‘and when the talk is done you are free to come back here or, indeed, go anywhere else you wish.’