Sword Song

‘A rainy day, lord, as I remember,’ he said.

‘And you were running like a hare, Haesten,’ I said.

I saw the shadow cross his face. I had accused him of cowardice, but he deserved an attack from me for he had sworn to be my man and had betrayed his oath by deserting me.

Eilaf, sensing trouble, cleared his throat. He was a heavy man, tall, with hair the brightest red I have ever seen. It was curly, and his beard was curly, and both were flame-coloured. Eilaf the Red, he was called, and though he was tall and heavy-set, he somehow seemed smaller than Haesten, who had a sublime confidence in his own abilities. ‘You are welcome, Lord Uhtred,’ Eilaf said.

I ignored him. Haesten was watching me, his face still clouded, but then I grinned. ‘Yet all Guthrum’s army ran that day,’ I said, ‘and the ones who didn’t are all dead. So I am glad that I saw you run.’

He smiled then. ‘I killed eight men at Ethandun,’ he said, eager for his men to know that he was no coward.

‘Then I am relieved I did not face your sword,’ I said, recovering my earlier insult with insincere flattery. Then I turned to the red-headed Eilaf. ‘And you,’ I asked, ‘were you at Ethandun?’

‘No, lord,’ he said.

‘Then you missed a rare fight,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that so, Haesten? A fight to remember!’

‘A massacre in the rain, lord,’ Haesten said.

‘And I still limp from it,’ I said, which was true, though the limp was small and hardly inconvenient.

I was named to three other men, three Danes. All of them were dressed well and had arm rings to show their prowess. I forget their names now, but they were there to see me, and they had brought their followers with them. I understood as Haesten made the introductions that he was showing me off. He was proving that I had joined him, and that it was therefore safe for them to join him. Haesten was brewing rebellion in that hall. I drew him to one side. ‘Who are they?’ I demanded.

‘They have lands and men in this part of Guthrum’s kingdom.’

‘And you want their men?’

‘We must make an army,’ Haesten said simply.

I gazed down at him. This rebellion, I thought, was not just against Guthrum of East Anglia, but against Alfred of Wessex, and if it was to succeed then all Britain would need be roused by sword, spear and axe. ‘And if I refuse to join you?’ I asked him

‘You will, lord,’ he said confidently.

‘I will?’ I asked.

‘Because tonight, lord, the dead will speak to you.’ Haesten smiled, and just then Eilaf intervened to say that all was ready. ‘We shall raise the dead,’ Haesten said dramatically, touching the hammer amulet about his neck, ‘and then we shall feast.’ He gestured towards the door at the back of the hall. ‘This way, if you will, lord. This way.’

And so I went to meet the dead.

Haesten led us into the darkness and I remember thinking how easy it was to say the dead rose and spoke if the thing was done in such darkness. How would we know? We could hear the corpse perhaps, but not see him, and I was about to protest when two of Eilaf’s men came from the hall with burning brands that flared bright in the damp night. They led us past a pen of pigs and the beasts’ eyes caught the firelight. It had rained while we were in the hall, just a passing winter shower, but water still dripped from the bare branches. Finan, nervous at the sorcery we were about to witness, stayed close to me.

We followed a path downhill to a small pasture beside what I took to be a barn, and there the torches were thrust into waiting heaps of wood that caught the fire fast so that the flames leaped up to illuminate the barn’s wooden wall and wet thatch. As the light brightened I saw that it was not a pasture at all, but a graveyard. The small field was dotted with low earth heaps, and was well fenced to stop animals rooting up the dead.

‘That was our church,’ Huda explained. He had appeared beside me and nodded at what I had assumed was the barn.

‘You’re a Christian?’ I asked.

‘Yes, lord. But we have no priest now.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Our dead go to their rest unshriven.’

‘I have a son in a Christian graveyard,’ I said, and wondered why I had said it. I rarely thought of my dead infant son. I had not known him. His mother and I were estranged. Yet I remembered him on that dark night in that wet place of the dead. ‘Why is a Danish skald buried in a Christian grave?’ I asked Huda. ‘You told me he was no Christian.’

‘He died here, lord, and we buried him before we knew that. Maybe that is why he is restless?’

‘Maybe,’ I said, then heard the struggle behind me and wished I had thought to ask for my swords before I left Eilaf’s hall.

I turned, expecting an attack, and instead saw that two men were dragging a third towards us. The third man was slight, young and fair-haired. His eyes looked huge in the flamelight. He was whimpering. The men who dragged him were much bigger and his struggles were useless. I looked quizzically at Haesten.

‘To raise the dead, lord,’ he explained, ‘we have to send a messenger across the gulf.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A Saxon,’ Haesten said carelessly.

‘He deserves to die?’ I asked. I was not squeamish about death, but I sensed Haesten would kill like a child drowning a mouse and I did not want a man’s death on my conscience if that man had not deserved to die. This was not battle, where a man stood a chance of going to the eternal joys of Odin’s hall.

‘He’s a thief,’ Haesten said.

‘Twice a thief,’ Eilaf added.

I crossed to the young man and lifted his head by raising his chin, and so saw that he had the brand-mark of a convicted robber burned into his forehead. ‘What did you steal?’ I asked him.

‘A coat, lord,’ he spoke in a whisper. ‘I was cold.’

‘Was that the first theft?’ I asked, ‘or the second?’

‘The first was a lamb,’ Eilaf said behind me.

‘I was hungry, lord,’ the young man said, ‘and my child was starving.’

‘You stole twice,’ I said, ‘which means you must die.’ That was the law even in this lawless place. The young man was weeping, yet still stared at me. He thought I might relent and order his life spared, but I turned away. I have stolen many things in my life, almost all of them more valuable than any lamb or coat, but I steal while the owner is watching and while he can defend his property with his sword. It is the thief who steals in the dark who deserves to die.

Huda was making the sign of the cross again and again. He was nervous. The young thief shouted incomprehensible words at me until one of his guards slapped him hard across the mouth, and then he just hung his head and cried. Finan and my three Saxons were clutching the crosses they wore about their necks.

‘You are ready, lord?’ Haesten asked me.

‘Yes,’ I said, trying to sound confident, yet in truth I was as nervous as Finan. There is a curtain between our world and the lands of the dead and part of me wished that curtain to stay closed. I instinctively felt for Serpent-Breath’s hilt, but of course she was not with me.

‘Put the message in his mouth,’ Haesten ordered. One of the guards tried to open the young man’s mouth, but the prisoner resisted until a knife stabbed at his lips and then he opened wide. An object was pushed onto his tongue. ‘A harp string,’ Haesten explained to me, ‘and Bjorn will know its meaning. Kill him now,’ he added to the guards.

‘No!’ the young man shouted, spitting out the coiled string. He started screaming and weeping as the two men dragged him to one of the earth mounds. They stood either side of the mound, holding their prisoner over the grave. The moon was silvering a gap in the clouds. The churchyard smelt of new rain. ‘No, please, no,’ the young man was shaking, crying. ‘I have a wife, I have children, no! Please!’

‘Kill him,’ Eilaf the Red ordered.

One of the guards pushed the harp string back into the messenger’s mouth, then held the jaw shut. He tilted the young man’s head back, hard back, exposing his throat and the second Dane slit it with a quick, practised thrust and a wrenching pull. I heard a stifled, guttural sound and saw the blood flicker black in the flamelight. It spattered the two men, fell across the grave and slapped wetly onto the damp grass. The messenger’s body twitched and struggled for a while as the blood flow became weaker. Then, at last, the young man slumped between his captors who let his last blood drops spurt weakly onto the grave. Only when no more blood flowed did they drag him away, dropping his corpse beside the graveyard’s wooden fence. I was holding my breath. None of us moved. An owl, its wings astonishingly white in the night, flew close above me and I instinctively touched my hammer amulet, convinced I had seen the thief’s soul going to the other world.

Haesten stood close to the blood-soaked grave. ‘You have blood, Bjorn!’ he shouted. ‘I have given you a life! I have sent you a message!’

Nothing happened. The wind sighed on the church’s thatch. Somewhere a beast moved in the darkness and then went still. A log collapsed in one of the fires and the sparks flew upwards.