Bernard Cornwell - The Burning Land

‘I will swear an oath to you, lord,’ I said, ‘and to no one else.’

‘I already have your oath,’ he said harshly.

‘And I will keep it,’ I said.

‘And when I’m dead,’ he asked bitterly, ‘what then?’

‘Then, lord, I shall go to Bebbanburg and take it, and keep it, and spend my days beside the sea.’

‘And if my son is threatened?’

‘Then Wessex must defend him,’ I said, ‘as I defend you now.’

‘And what makes you think you can defend me?’ He was angry now. ‘You would take my army to Fearnhamme? You have no certainty that Harald will go there!’

‘He will,’ I said.

‘You can’t know that!’

‘I shall force it on him,’ I said.

‘How?’ he demanded.

‘The gods will do that for me,’ I said.

‘You’re a fool,’ he snapped.

‘If you don’t trust me,’ I spoke just as forcibly, ‘then your son-in-law wants to be your lord of battles. Or you can command the army yourself? Or give Edward his chance?’

He shuddered, I thought with anger, but when he spoke again his voice was patient. ‘I just wish to know,’ he said, ‘why you are so sure that the enemy will do what you want.’

‘Because the gods are capricious,’ I said arrogantly, ‘and I am about to amuse them.’

‘Tell me,’ he said tiredly.

‘Harald is a fool,’ I said, ‘and he is a fool in love. We have his woman. I shall take her to Fearnhamme, and he will follow because he is besotted with her. And even if I did not have his woman,’ I went on, ‘he would still follow me.’

I had thought he would scoff at that, but he considered my words quietly, then joined his hands prayerfully. ‘I am tempted to doubt you, but Brother Godwin assures me you will bring us victory.’

‘Brother Godwin?’ I had wanted to ask about the strange blind monk.

‘God speaks to him,’ Alfred said with a quiet assurance.

I almost laughed, but then thought that the gods do speak to us, though usually by signs and portents. ‘Does he take all your decisions, lord?’ I asked sourly.

‘God assists me in all things,’ Alfred said sharply, then turned away because the bell was summoning the Christians to prayer in Æscengum’s new church.

The gods are capricious, and I was about to amuse them. And Alfred was right. I was a fool.

What did Harald want? Or, for that matter, Haesten? It was simpler to answer for Haesten, because he was the cleverer and more ambitious man, and he wanted land. He wanted to be a king.

The northmen had come to Britain in search of kingdoms, and the lucky ones had found their thrones. A northman reigned in Northumbria, and another in East Anglia, and Haesten wanted to be their equal. He wanted the crown, the treasures, the women and the status, and there were two places those things could be found. One was Mercia and the other Wessex.

Mercia was the better prospect. It had no king and was riven by warfare. The north and east of the country was ruled by jarls, powerful Danes who kept strong troops of household warriors and barred their gates each night, while the south and east was Saxon land. The Saxons looked to my cousin, Æthelred, for protection and he gave it to them, but only because he had inherited great wealth and enjoyed the firm support of his father-in-law, Alfred. Mercia was not part of Wessex, but it did Wessex’s bidding, and Alfred was the true power behind Æthelred. Haesten might attack Mercia and he would find allies in the north and east, but eventually he would find himself facing the armies of Saxon Mercia and Alfred’s Wessex. And Haesten was cautious. He had made his camp on a desolate shore of Wessex, but he did nothing provocative. He waited, certain that Alfred would pay him to leave, which Alfred had done. He also waited to see what damage Harald might achieve.

Harald probably wanted a throne, but above all he wanted everything that glittered. He wanted silver, gold and women. He was like a child that sees something pretty and screams until he possesses it. The throne of Wessex might fall into his hands as he greedily scooped up his baubles, but he did not aim for it. He had come to Wessex because it was full of treasures, and now he was ravaging the land, taking plunder, while Haesten just watched. Haesten hoped, I think, that Harald’s wild troops would so weaken Alfred that he could come behind and take the whole land. If Wessex was a bull, then Harald’s men were blood-maddened terriers who would attack in a pack and most would die in the attacking, but they would weaken the bull, and then Haesten, the mastiff, would come and finish the job. So to deter Haesten I needed to crush Harald’s stronger forces. The bull could not be weakened, but the terriers had to be killed, and they were dangerous, they were vicious, but they were also ill-disciplined, and I would now tempt them with treasure. I would tempt them with Skade’s sleek beauty.

The fifty men I had posted in Godelmingum fled from that town next morning, retreating from a larger group of Danes. My men splashed their horses through the river and streamed into Æscengum as the Danes lined the farther bank to stare at the banners hanging bright on the burh’s eastern palisade. Those banners showed crosses and saints, the panoply of Alfred’s state, and to make certain the enemy knew the king was in the burh I made Osferth walk slowly along the wall dressed in a bright cloak and with a circlet of shining bronze on his head.

Osferth, my man, was Alfred’s bastard. Few people knew, even though Osferth’s resemblance to his father was striking. He had been born to a servant girl whom Alfred had taken to his bed in the days before Christianity had captured his soul. Once, in an unguarded moment, Alfred had confided to me that Osferth was a continual reproof. ‘A reminder,’ he had told me, ‘of the sinner I once was.’

‘A sweet sin, lord,’ I had replied lightly.

‘Most sins are sweet,’ the king said, ‘the devil makes them so.’

What kind of perverted religion makes pleasures into sins? The old gods, even though they never deny us pleasure, fade these days. Folk abandon them, preferring the whip and bridle of the Christians’ nailed god.

So Osferth, a reminder of Alfred’s sweet sin, played the king that morning. I doubt he enjoyed it, for he resented Alfred, who had tried to turn him into a priest. Osferth had rebelled against that destiny, becoming one of my house-warriors instead. He was not a natural fighter, not like Finan, but he brought a keen intelligence to the business of war, and intelligence is a weapon that has a sharp edge and a long reach.

All war ends with the shield wall, where men hack in drink-sodden rage with axes and swords, but the art is to manipulate the enemy so that when that moment of screaming rage arrives it comes to your advantage. By parading Osferth on Æscengum’s wall I was trying to tempt Harald. Where the king is, I was suggesting to our enemies, there is treasure. Come to Æscengum, I was saying, and to increase the temptation I displayed Skade to the Danish warriors who gathered on the river’s far bank.

A few arrows had been shot at us, but those ended when the enemy recognised Skade. She unwittingly helped me by screaming at the men across the water. ‘Come and kill them all!’ she shouted.

‘I’ll shut her mouth,’ Steapa volunteered.

‘Let the bitch shout,’ I said.

She pretended to speak no English, yet she gave me a withering glance before looking back across the river. ‘They’re cowards,’ she shouted at the Danes, ‘Saxon cowards! Tell Harald they will die like sheep.’ She stepped close to the palisade. She could not cross the wall because I had ordered her tied by a rope that was looped about her neck and held by one of Steapa’s men.