Sword of Kings

‘Kill them!’ the man on the prow shouted, ‘God is on our side! We cannot be defeated!’

‘You can die,’ Oswi snarled.

I had twenty men with me. I left ten to guard against the men behind us as I led the rest towards the prow. We made a shield wall, and slowly, obstructed by the rowers’ benches and by the discarded oars, we walked forward. We clashed blades against our shields, we shouted insults, we were death approaching, and the enemy had taken enough. They dropped their shields, threw down their weapons, and knelt in submission. More of my men clambered aboard, joined by Egil’s Norsemen. A shriek told me that a man died behind me, but it was the last shriek from a defeated crew because this enemy was beaten. I glanced right to see that the fourth enemy ship, the smallest one, had sheeted in her sail and was racing southwards. She was running away. ‘This fight is over,’ I called to the enemy who were now crammed beneath the cross that decorated the prow of their ship. ‘Don’t die for nothing.’ We had sunk one ship and captured two. ‘Throw down your shields!’ I called as I stepped forward, ‘It’s over!’

Shields clattered on the deck. Spears and swords were dropped. It was over, all except for one defiant warrior, just one. He was young, tall, and had a thick blonde beard and fiery eyes. He stood on the prow where he carried a long-sword and a plain shield. ‘God is on our side!’ he shouted, ‘God won’t desert us! God never fails!’ He hammered the blade against his shield. ‘Pick up your weapons and kill them!’

Not one of his companions moved. They knew they were beaten, their only hope now was that we would let them live. The young man, who had a silver chain and crucifix hanging over his mail, hammered the sword a last time, realised he was alone and, to my astonishment, jumped down from the prow’s platform and took two paces towards me. ‘You are Uhtredærwe?’ he demanded.

‘Men call me that,’ I acknowledged mildly.

‘We were sent to kill you.’

‘You’re not the first to be sent on that errand,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am God’s chosen one.’

His face was framed by his helmet, which was fine piece of work, chased with silver and topped by a cross on the ridged crest. He was good-looking, tall and proud. ‘Does God’s chosen one have a name?’ I asked. I tossed Wasp-Sting to Oswi and slid Serpent-Breath from her fleece-lined scabbard. God’s chosen one seemed determined to fight, and he would fight alone, so there would be room for Serpent-Breath to work her savagery.

‘My name,’ the young man said haughtily, ‘is for God to know. Father!’ he turned and shouted.

‘My son?’ a harsh voice answered. It was a priest who had been standing amidst the spearmen on the ship’s prow and, from his grating voice, I recognised him as the man who had been encouraging our slaughter.

‘If I die here I’ll go to heaven?’ The youngster asked the question earnestly.

‘You will be at God’s side this very day, my son. You will be with the blessed saints! Now do God’s work!’

The young man knelt for an instant. He closed his eyes and made a clumsy sign of the cross with the hand holding his sword. Egil’s men, my men, and the surviving enemy watched, and I saw the Christians among my crew also make the sign of the cross. Were they praying for me or were they begging forgiveness because they had captured cross-prowed ships? ‘Don’t be a fool, boy,’ I said.

‘I am no fool,’ he said proudly as he stood. ‘God does not choose fools to do his work.’

‘Which is?’

‘To rid the earth of your wickedness.’

‘In my experience,’ I said, ‘your god almost always chooses fools.’

‘Then I will be God’s fool,’ he said defiantly. There was a clatter behind him and he turned, startled, only to see that another of his companions had thrown down spear and shield. ‘You should have more faith,’ he told the man derisively, then turned to me and charged.

He was brave, of course. Brave and foolish. He knew he would die. Maybe not at my hands, but if he had succeeded in killing me then my men would have hacked him down mercilessly, which meant this fool knew he had only minutes to live, yet he believed he would have another life in the sunlit boredom of the Christian heaven. And did he believe he could kill me? Nothing is certain in battle. He might have killed me if he had both the sword-skill and the shield-craft that make a great warrior, but I suspected his faith was not rooted in hard-won craft, but in the belief that his god would reach down and give him victory, and that foolish belief spurred him towards me.

While he had been praying I had slipped my hand out of my shield’s leather grips and was now holding it by just the outer loop. He must have noticed, but he thought nothing of it. I held both shield and sword low, waited until he was just six or seven paces away, then I drew my left arm back and threw the shield. I threw it low, threw it hard, and threw it at his feet and, sure enough, he tripped on the shield and a heave of the waves tipped him sideways so that he sprawled on a rower’s bench, and I stepped forward, swept Serpent-Breath once, and her blade hit his blade with a dull sound and broke it. Two-thirds of his sword clattered across the deck as he desperately stabbed the remaining stub at my thigh. I reached down and took his wrist and held it firm. ‘Are you really so eager to die?’ I asked him.

He struggled against my grip, then tried to hit me with the iron-rimmed edge of his shield, which banged against my thigh without hurting me. ‘Give me another sword,’ he demanded.

I laughed at that. ‘Answer me, fool. Are you really so eager to die?’

‘God commanded me to kill you!’

‘Or were you told to kill me by a priest who dripped poison in your ear?’ I asked.

He drove the shield against me again so I placed Serpent-Breath in its way. ‘God commanded me,’ he insisted.

‘Then your nailed god is as big a fool as you,’ I said harshly. ‘Where are you from, fool?’

He hesitated, but I squeezed his wrist and bent his arm back painfully. ‘Wessex,’ he muttered.

‘I can tell that from your accent. Whereabouts in Wessex?’

‘Andefera,’ he spoke reluctantly.

‘And Andefera,’ I said, ‘is in Wiltunscir.’ He nodded. ‘Where Æthelhelm is ealdorman,’ I added, and saw him flinch at Æthelhelm’s name. ‘Let go of the sword, boy.’

He resisted, but I bent his wrist again and he let the broken sword fall. Judging by the hilt that was decorated with gold wire it had been an expensive sword, but it had shattered when it was struck by Serpent-Breath. I tossed the hilt to Oswi. ‘Take this holy fool and tie him to Spearhafoc’s mast,’ I said, ‘he can live.’

‘But Spearhafoc might not,’ Finan said drily. ‘She’s foundering.’

I looked across the deck of the intervening ship and saw that Finan was right.

Spearhafoc was sinking.

Spearhafoc had sprung two planks when she struck the first enemy ship, and water was pouring into her bows. By the time I reached her she was already low at the prow. Gerbruht, a big Frisian, had ripped up the deck planking and now had men lifting the ballast stones, which they carried to the stern to balance the ship. ‘We can plug it, lord!’ he shouted when he saw me. ‘The leak’s only on one side.’

‘Do you need men?’ I called.

‘We’ll manage!’

Egil had followed me onto Spearhafoc’s stern. ‘We’ll not catch that last one,’ he said, looking at the enemy’s smallest ship, which was now almost at the southern horizon.

‘I’m hoping to save this one,’ I said grimly. Gerbruht might be optimistic about plugging Spearhafoc’s leaks, but the wind was rising and the seas building. A dozen men were bailing the ship, some using their helmets to scoop the water overboard. Still,’ I went on, ‘we can get home in one of those ships.’ I nodded towards the two we’d captured.

‘They’re lumps of shit,’ Egil said, ‘too heavy!’

‘They might be useful for cargo,’ I suggested.

‘Better as firewood.’

Gerbruht, his hands under the bilge’s water, was stuffing cloth into the gap left by the sprung planks, while other men were hurling water overboard. One of the two enemy ships we had captured was also leaking, the ship with the lime-washed cross, which had been damaged when the last ship joined the fight. Her stern had been hit by the larger boat and her planking had cracked to spring a leak at the waterline. We put most of our prisoners on that ship, after taking their weapons, their mail, their shields, and their helmets. We took their sail, which was new and valuable, and their few supplies, which were meagre; some rock-hard cheese, a sack of damp bread, and two barrels of ale. I left them just six oars and then cut them loose. ‘You’re letting them go?’ Egil asked, surprised.

‘I don’t want to feed the bastards at Bebbanburg,’ I said. ‘And how far can they go? They’ve no food, nothing to drink, and no sail. Half of them are wounded and they’re in a leaking boat. If they’ve any sense they’ll row for shore.’

‘Against the wind,’ Egil was amused at the thought.

‘And when they get ashore,’ I said, ‘they’ll have no weapons. So welcome to Northumbria.’

We had rescued eleven of the fishermen who had crewed the Gydene and the Swealwe, all of them forced to row for their captors. The prisoners we had taken were all either West Saxons or East Anglians and subjects of King Edward, if he still lived. I had kept a dozen to take back to Bebbanburg, including the priest who had so feverishly called on his men to slaughter us. He was brought to me on Spearhafoc, which was still bows down, but Gerbruht’s efforts were stemming the worst of the leak, and moving much of the ballast aft had steadied the hull.

The priest was young and stocky, with a round face, black hair, and a sour expression. There was something familiar about him. ‘Have we met?’ I asked.