Бернард Корнуэлл: War Lord

‘It’s fate,’ Finan answered, ‘and fate is a bitch.’ We lay in the long grass watching the dust kicked up from the road by the scout’s stallion. ‘He should have ridden along the road’s edge,’ Finan said, ‘no dust there.’

The scout, who I recognised now as Oswi, swerved off the road and began the long climb to the hilltop where we lay.

‘You’re sure about the dragon?’ I asked.

‘Can’t miss a big beast like that,’ Finan said, ‘the creature came from the north, so it did.’

‘And the star fell from north to south,’ my son said, reaching under his chest to touch his cross. My son is a Christian.

The dust in the valley died away. The enemy was coming, except I was not sure who my enemy was, only that this day I must fight the king coming from the south. And that felt all wrong, because the star and the dragon had said that evil would come from the north.

We look for omens. Even Christians search the world for such signs. We watch the flight of birds, fear the fall of a branch, look for the wind’s pattern on water, draw breath at a vixen’s cry, and touch our amulets when a harp string snaps, but omens are hard to read unless the gods decide to make their message plain. And three nights before, in Bebbanburg, the gods had sent a message that could not have been clearer.

That evil would come from the north.

The dragon had flown in the night sky above Bebbanburg. I did not see it, but Finan did and I trust Finan. It was vast, he said, with a skin like hammered silver, eyes like burning coals, and with wings wide enough to hide the stars. Each beat of those monstrous wings made the sea shiver like a burst of wind on a calm day. It had turned its head towards Bebbanburg, and Finan thought fire was about to be spewed across the whole fortress, but then the great slow wings beat once more, the sea shuddered far beneath, and the dragon flew on southwards.

‘And a star fell last night,’ Father Cuthbert said, ‘Mehrasa saw it.’ Father Cuthbert, Bebbanburg’s priest, was blind and married to Mehrasa, an exotic dark-skinned girl we had rescued from a slave-trader in Lundene many years before. I call her a girl out of habit, but of course she was middle-aged now. We grow old, I thought.

‘The star fell from the north towards the south,’ Father Cuthbert said.

‘And the dragon came from the north,’ Finan added.

I said nothing. Benedetta leaned on my shoulder. She too said nothing, but her hand tightened on mine.

‘Signs and wonders,’ Father Cuthbert said, ‘something dire will happen.’ He crossed himself.

It was an early summer evening. We were sitting outside Bebbanburg’s hall where swallows flew around the eaves and where the long waves rolled incessantly against the beach beneath the eastern ramparts. The waves give us rhythm, I thought, an endless sound that rises and falls. I had been born to that sound and soon I must die. I touched my hammer amulet and prayed that I would die to the sound of Bebbanburg’s waves and to the cry of her gulls.

‘Something dire,’ Father Cuthbert repeated, ‘and it will come from the north.’

Or maybe the dragon and the falling star were omens of my death? I touched the hammer again. I can still ride a horse, heft a shield, and wield a sword, but at day’s end the aches in my joints tell me I am old. ‘The worst thing about death,’ I broke my silence, ‘is not knowing what happens next.’

No one spoke for a while, then Benedetta squeezed my hand again. ‘You are a fool,’ she said fondly.

‘Always has been,’ Finan put in.

‘You can watch what happens from Valhalla perhaps?’ Father Cuthbert suggested. As a Christian priest he was not supposed to believe in Valhalla, but he had long learned to indulge me. He smiled. ‘Or join the church of Rome, lord?’ he said mischievously. ‘I assure you that from heaven you can watch earth!’

‘In all your efforts to convert me,’ I said, ‘I never heard you say there was ale in heaven.’

‘I forgot to mention that?’ he asked, still smiling.

‘There will be wine in heaven,’ Benedetta said, ‘good wine from Italy.’

That provoked silence. None of us much liked wine. ‘I hear King Hywel has gone to Italy,’ my son said after the pause, ‘or perhaps he’s just thinking of going?’

‘To Rome?’ Finan asked.

‘So they say.’

‘I would like to go to Rome,’ Father Cuthbert said wistfully.

‘There is nothing in Rome,’ Benedetta said scornfully. ‘It is ruins and rats.’

‘And the Holy Father,’ Cuthbert said gently.

Again no one spoke. Hywel, whom I liked, was King of Dyfed and if he thought it was safe to travel to Rome then there had to be peace between his Welshmen and the Saxons of Mercia, so no trouble there. But the dragon had not come from the south, nor from the west, it had come from the north. ‘The Scots,’ I said.

‘Too busy fighting the Norsemen,’ Finan said brusquely.

‘And raiding Cumbria,’ my son said bitterly.

‘And Constantine is old,’ Father Cuthbert added.

‘We’re all old,’ I said.

‘And Constantine would rather build monasteries than make war,’ Cuthbert went on.

I doubted that was true. Constantine was King of Scotland. I enjoyed meeting him, he was a wise and elegant man, but I did not trust him. No Northumbrian trusts the Scots, just as no Scot trusts the Northumbrians. ‘It will never end,’ I said wanly.

‘What?’ Benedetta asked.

‘War. Trouble.’

‘When we are all Christians …’ Father Cuthbert began.

‘Ha!’ I said curtly.

‘But the dragon and the star do not lie,’ he went on. ‘The trouble will come from the north. The prophet has told us so in the scriptures! “ Quia malum ego adduco ab aquilone et contritionem magnam .”’ He paused, hoping one of us would ask him to translate.

‘I will bring evil from the north,’ Benedetta disappointed him, ‘and much destroying.’

‘Much destruction!’ Father Cuthbert said ominously. ‘Evil will come from the north! It is written!’

And next morning the evil came.

From the south.

The ship came from the south. There was hardly a breath of wind, the sea was lazy, its small waves collapsing exhausted on Bebbanburg’s long beach. The approaching ship, its prow crested with a cross, left a widening ripple that was touched with glittering gold by the early morning sun. She was being rowed, her oars rising and falling in a slow, weary rhythm. ‘Poor bastards must have been rowing all night,’ Berg said. He commanded the morning’s guards posted on Bebbanburg’s ramparts.

‘Forty oars,’ I said, more to make conversation than to tell Berg what he could plainly see for himself.

‘And coming here.’

‘From where, though?’

Berg shrugged. ‘What’s happening today?’ he asked.

It was my turn to shrug. What would happen was what always happened. Cauldrons would be lit to boil clothes clean, salt would evaporate in the pans north of the fortress, men would practise with shields, swords and spears, horses exercised, fish would be smoked, water drawn from the deep wells, and ale brewed in the fortress kitchens. ‘I plan to do nothing,’ I said, ‘but you can take two men and remind Olaf Einerson that he owes me rent. A lot of rent.’

‘His wife’s ill, lord.’

‘He said that last winter.’

‘And he lost half his flock to Scotsmen.’

‘More likely he sold them,’ I said sourly. ‘No one else has complained of Scottish raiders this spring.’ Olaf Einerson had inherited his tenancy from his father, who had never failed to deliver fleeces or silver as rent. Olaf, the son, was a big and capable man whose ambitions, it seemed to me, went beyond raising hardy sheep on the high hills. ‘On second thoughts,’ I said, ‘take fifteen men and scare the shit out of the bastard. I don’t trust him.’