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

‘Then he’s like you in that regard,’ Erik said with a wan smile, ‘if you are what men say you are.’

‘What do men say of me?’ I asked, curious.

‘That you kill like a Northman,’ Erik said. He turned to stare downriver. A small fleet of Danish and Norse ships had managed to escape the wharves, but some now rowed back upstream in an attempt to save the fugitives who crowded the river’s edge, but the Saxons were already among that doomed crowd. A furious fight was raging on the wharves where men hacked at each other. Some, to escape the fury, were leaping into the river. ‘I sometimes think,’ Erik said sadly, ‘that death is the real meaning of life. We worship death, we give it, we believe it leads to joy.’

‘I don’t worship death,’ I said.

‘Christians do,’ Erik remarked, glancing at Pyrlig, whose mailed chest displayed his wooden cross.

‘No,’ Pyrlig said.

‘Then why the image of a dead man?’ Erik asked.

‘Our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead,’ Pyrlig said energetically, ‘he conquered death! He died to give us life and regained his own life in his dying. Death, lord, is just a gate to more life.’

‘Then why do we fear death?’ Erik asked in a voice that suggested he expected no answer. He turned to look at the downstream chaos. The two ships we had used to shoot the bridge’s gap had been commandeered by fleeing men, and one of those ships had foundered just yards from the wharf where it now lay on its side, half sunken. Men had been spilled into the water where many must have drowned, but others had managed to reach the muddy foreshore where they were being hacked to death by gleeful men with spears, swords, axes and hoes. The survivors clung to the wreck, trying to shelter from a handful of Saxon bowmen whose long hunting arrows thudded into the ship’s timbers. There was so much death that morning. The streets of the broken city reeked of blood and were filled with the wailing of women beneath the smoke-smeared yellow sky. ‘We trusted you, Lord Uhtred,’ Erik said bleakly, still staring downriver. ‘You were going to bring us Ragnar, you were to be king in Mercia and you were to give us the whole island of Britain.’

‘The dead man lied,’ I said, ‘Bjorn lied.’

Erik turned back to me, his face grave. ‘I said we should not try and trick you,’ he said, ‘but Earl Haesten insisted.’ Erik shrugged, then looked at Father Pyrlig, noting his mail coat and the well-worn hilts of his swords. ‘But you also tricked us, Lord Uhtred,’ Erik went on, ‘because I think you knew this man was no priest, but a warrior.’

‘He is both,’ I said.

Erik grimaced, perhaps remembering the skill with which Pyrlig had defeated his brother in the arena. ‘You lied,’ he said sadly, ‘and we lied, but we still could have taken Wessex together. And now?’ he turned and looked along the bridge’s roadway, ‘now I don’t know whether my brother will live or die.’ He grimaced. Sigefrid was motionless now and for a moment I thought he might have gone to the corpse-hall already, but then he slowly turned his head to give me a baleful stare.

‘I shall pray for him,’ Pyrlig said.

‘Yes,’ Erik said simply, ‘please.’

‘And what shall I do?’ I asked.

‘You?’ Erik frowned, puzzled by my question.

‘Do I let you live, Erik Thurgilson?’ I asked. ‘Or kill you?’

‘You will find us difficult to kill,’ he said.

‘But kill you I will,’ I responded, ‘if I must.’ That was the real negotiation in those two sentences. The truth was that Erik and his men were trapped and doomed, but to kill them we would need to hack our way through a fearsome shield wall, and then batter down desperate men whose only thought would be to take many of us with them to the next world. I would lose twenty or more men here, and others of my household troops would be crippled for life. That was a price I did not want to pay, and Erik knew it, but he also knew that the price would be paid if he was not reasonable. ‘Is Haesten here?’ I asked him, looking down the broken bridge.

Erik shook his head. ‘I saw him leave,’ he said, nodding downriver.

‘A pity,’ I said, ‘because he broke an oath to me. If he had been here I would have let you all go in exchange for his life.’

Erik stared at me for a few heartbeats, judging whether I had spoken the truth. ‘Then kill me instead of Haesten,’ he said at last, ‘and let all these others leave.’

‘You broke no oath to me,’ I said, ‘so you owe me no life.’

‘I want these men to live,’ Erik said with a sudden passion, ‘and my life is a small price for theirs. I will pay it, Lord Uhtred, and in return you give my men their lives, and give them Wave-Tamer,’ he pointed to his brother’s ship that was still tied in the small dock where we had landed.

‘Is it a fair price, father?’ I asked Pyrlig.

‘Who can set a value on life?’ Pyrlig asked in return.

‘I can,’ I said harshly, and turned back to Erik. ‘The price is this,’ I told him. ‘You will leave every weapon you carry on this bridge. You will leave your shields. You will leave your mail coats, and you will leave your helmets. You will leave your arm rings, your chains, your brooches, your coins and your belt buckles. You will leave everything of value, Erik Thurgilson, and then you may take a ship that I choose to give you, and you may go.’

‘A ship that you choose,’ Erik said.

‘Yes.’

He smiled wanly. ‘I made Wave-Tamer for my brother,’ he said. ‘I first found her keel in the forest. It was an oak with a trunk straight as an oar shaft and I cut that myself. We used eleven other oaks, Lord Uhtred, for her ribs and her cross-pieces, for her stem and her planking. Her caulking was hair from seven bears I killed with my own spear, and I made her nails on my own forge. My mother made her sail, I wove her lines, and I gave her to Thor by killing a horse I loved and sprinkling his blood on her stem. She has carried my brother and me through storms and fog and ice. She is,’ he turned to look at Wave-Tamer, ‘she is beautiful. I love that ship.’

‘You love her more than your life?’

He thought for an instant, then shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Then it will be a ship of my choice,’ I said stubbornly, and that might have ended the negotiation except there was a commotion under the archway where the Northmen’s shield wall still faced my troops.

Æthelred had come to the bridge, and was demanding to be allowed through the gate. Erik offered me a quizzical look when the news was brought to us and I shrugged. ‘He commands here,’ I said.

‘So I will need his permission to leave?’

‘You will,’ I said.

Erik sent word that the shield wall was to let Æthelred onto the roadway and my cousin strutted onto the bridge with his customary cockiness. Aldhelm, the commander of his guard, was his only companion. Æthelred ignored Erik, instead facing me with a belligerent expression. ‘You presume to negotiate on my behalf?’ he accused me.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘Negotiating on my own behalf,’ I said. ‘This is the Earl Erik Thurgilson,’ I introduced the Norseman in English, but now changed to Danish. ‘And this,’ I said to Erik, ‘is the Ealdorman of Mercia, the Lord Æthelred.’

Erik responded to the introduction by offering Æthelred a small bow, but the courtesy was wasted. Æthelred looked around the bridge, counting the men who had taken refuge there. ‘Not so many,’ he said brusquely. ‘They must all die.’

‘I have already offered them their lives,’ I said.

Æthelred rounded on me. ‘We had orders,’ he said bitingly, ‘to capture Sigefrid, Erik and Haesten, and deliver them as captives to King Æthelstan.’ I saw Erik’s eyes widen slightly. I had assumed he spoke no English, but now realised he must have learned enough of the language to understand Æthelred’s words. ‘Are you disobeying my father-in-law?’ Æthelred challenged me when I made no response.

I kept my temper. ‘You can fight them here,’ I explained patiently, ‘and you’ll lose many good men. Too many. You can trap them here, but at slack water a ship will row to the bridge and rescue them.’ That would be a hard thing to do, but I had learned never to underestimate the seamanship of the Northmen. ‘Or you can rid Lundene of their presence,’ I said, ‘and that is what I chose to do.’ Aldhelm sniggered at that, implying that I had chosen the coward’s option. I looked at him and he challenged my gaze, refusing to look away.

‘Kill them, lord,’ Aldhelm said to Æthelred, though he continued staring at me.

‘If you wish to fight them,’ I said, ‘then that is your privilege, but I’ll have none of it.’

For a moment both Æthelred and Aldhelm were tempted to accuse me of cowardice. I could see the thought on their faces, but they could also see something in my face and they let the thought go unsaid. ‘You always loved pagans,’ Æthelred sneered instead.

‘I loved them so well,’ I said angrily, ‘that I took two ships through that gap in the black of night,’ I pointed to where the jagged stumps of the bridge’s planking ended. ‘I brought men into the city, cousin, and I captured Ludd’s Gate, and I fought a battle in that gate such as I would never wish to fight again, and in that fight I killed pagans for you. And yes, I love them.’

Æthelred looked at the gap. Spray showed continually there, thrown up by the seethe of water falling through the break with such force that the ancient wooden roadway quivered and the air was filled with the river’s noise. ‘You had no orders to come by ship,’ Æthelred said indignantly, and I knew he resented my actions because they might detract from the glory he expected to garner from his capture of Lundene.