Bernard Cornwell - Death of Kings

Edward ordered the Centishmen to find quarters in the eastern part of the city, but of course the newcomers wanted to explore Lundene and the fight started when a dozen of Sigelf’s men demanded ale in a tavern called the Red Pig, which was popular with Ealdorman Æthelhelm’s men. The fight began over a whore and soon spilled from the tavern door and spread down the hill. Mercians, West Saxons and Centishmen were brawling in the street and within minutes swords and knives were drawn.

‘What’s happening?’ Edward, his council interrupted, stared aghast from a palace window. He could hear shouts, blades clashing and see dead and wounded men on the stone-paved hill. ‘Is it the Danes?’ he asked, appalled.

I ignored the king. ‘Steapa!’ I called, then ran down the steps and shouted at the steward to bring me Serpent-Breath. Steapa was calling his men together. ‘You!’ I grabbed one of the king’s bodyguard. ‘Find a rope. A long one.’

‘A rope, lord?’

‘There are masons repairing the palace roof. They have rope! Fetch it! Now! And find someone who can blow a horn!’

A dozen of us strode into the street, but there were at least a hundred men fighting there, and twice that many watching and calling encouragement. I slammed a man across the head with the flat of Serpent-Breath, kicked another one down, bellowed for men to stop, but they were oblivious. One man even ran at me, screaming, his sword lifted, then seemed to realise his mistake and curved away.

The man I had sent to find a rope brought one with a heavy wooden bucket attached, and I used the pail as a weight to hurl the rope over the projecting inn sign of the Red Pig. ‘Find me a man, any man, one who’s fighting,’ I told Steapa.

He stomped off while I made a noose. A wounded man, guts hanging, crawled down the hill. A woman was screaming. The gutter was running with ale-diluted blood. One of the king’s men arrived with a horn. ‘Sound it,’ I said, ‘and keep blowing it.’

Steapa dragged a man to me, we had no idea whether he was from Wessex or Mercia, but it did not matter. I tightened the noose around his neck, slapped him when he begged for mercy, and hauled him into the air where he hanged, legs kicking. The horn blew on, insistent, unignorable. I handed the rope’s end to Oswi, my servant. ‘Tie it to something,’ I said, then turned and bellowed at the street. ‘Anyone else want to die?’

The sight of a man dancing on a rope while he chokes to death has a calming influence on a crowd. The street went quiet. The king and a dozen men had appeared at the palace door and men bowed or knelt in homage.

‘One more fight,’ I shouted, ‘and you’ll all die!’ I looked for one of my men. ‘Pull on the bastard’s ankles,’ I said, pointing at the hanged man.

‘You just killed one of my men,’ a voice said, and I turned to see a slight man with a sharp fox-like face and long red plaited moustaches. He was an older man, perhaps close to fifty, and his red hair was greying at the temples. ‘You killed him without trial!’ he accused me.

I towered over him, but he faced me pugnaciously. ‘I’ll hang a dozen more of your men if they fight in the street,’ I said, ‘and who are you?’

‘Ealdorman Sigelf,’ he said, ‘and you call me lord.’

‘I’m Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said and was rewarded by a blink of surprise, ‘and you can call me lord.’

Sigelf evidently decided he did not want to fight me. ‘They shouldn’t have been fighting,’ he acknowledged grudgingly. He frowned. ‘You met my son, I believe?’

‘I met your son,’ I said.

‘He was a fool,’ Sigelf said in a voice as sharp as his face, ‘a young fool. He’s learned his lesson.’

‘The lesson of loyalty?’ I asked, looking across the street to where Sigebriht was bowing low to the king.

‘So they both liked the same bitch,’ Sigelf said, ‘but Edward was a prince and princes get what they want.’

‘So do kings,’ I said mildly.

Sigelf caught my meaning and gave me a very hard glance. ‘Cent doesn’t need a king,’ he said, clearly trying to scotch the rumour that he wanted the throne for himself.

‘Cent has a king,’ I said.

‘So we hear,’ he spoke sarcastically, ‘but Wessex needs to take more care of us. Every damned Northman who gets his arse kicked in Frankia comes to our shores, and what does Wessex do? It scratches its own arse then sniffs its fingers while we suffer.’ He watched his son bow a second time and spat, though whether that was because of his son’s obeisance or because of Wessex it was hard to tell. ‘Look what happened when Harald and Haesten came!’ he demanded.

‘I defeated both of them,’ I said.

‘But not before they’d raped half of Cent and burned fifty or more villages. We need more defences.’ He glared at me. ‘We need some help!’

‘At least you’re here,’ I said emolliently.

‘We’ll help Wessex,’ Sigelf said, ‘even if Wessex doesn’t help us.’

I had thought that the arrival of the Centishmen would provoke some action from Edward, but instead he waited. There was a council of war every day, but it decided nothing except to wait and see what the enemy would do. Scouts were watching the Danes and sent reports back every day and those reports said the Danes were still not moving. I urged the king to attack them, but I might as well have begged him to fly to the moon. I begged him to let me lead my own men to scout the enemy, but he refused.

‘He thinks you’ll attack them,’ Æthelflaed told me.

‘Why doesn’t he attack?’ I asked, frustrated.

‘Because he’s frightened,’ she said, ‘because there are too many men giving him advice, because he’s scared of doing the wrong thing, because he only has to lose one battle and he’s no longer king.’

We were on the top floor of a Roman house, one of those astonishing buildings that had stairs climbing to floor after floor. The moon shone through a window, and through the holes in the roof where the slates had fallen. It was cold and we were wrapped in fleeces. ‘A king shouldn’t be frightened,’ I said.

‘Edward knows men compare him to his father. He wonders what Father would have done now.’

‘Alfred would have called for me,’ I said, ‘preached to me for ten minutes, then given me the army.’

She lay silent in my arms. She was gazing at the moon-speckled roof. ‘Do you think,’ she asked, ‘that we’ll ever have peace?’

‘No.’

‘I dream of a day when we can live in a great hall, go hunting, listen to songs, walk by the river and never fear an enemy.’

‘You and me?’

‘Just you and me,’ she said. She turned her head so that her hair hid her eyes. ‘Just you and me.’

Next morning Edward ordered Æthelflaed to return to Cirrenceastre, an order she pointedly ignored. ‘I told him to give you the army,’ she said.

‘And he said?’

‘That he was king and he would lead the army.’

Her husband had also ordered Merewalh back to Gleawecestre, but Æthelflaed persuaded the Mercian to stay. ‘We need every good man,’ she told him, and so we did, but not to rot inside Lundene. We had a whole army there, over four thousand five hundred men, and all it did was guard the walls and gaze out at the unchanging countryside beyond.

We did nothing and the Danes ravaged the Wessex countryside, but made no attempt to storm a burh. The autumn days shrank and still we remained indecisive in Lundene. Archbishop Plegmund returned to Contwaraburg and I thought his departure might embolden Edward, but Bishop Erkenwald stayed with the king and counselled caution. So did Father Coenwulf, Edward’s mass priest and closest adviser. ‘It’s not like the Danes to be supine,’ he told Edward, ‘so I fear a trap. Let them make the first move, lord King. They surely cannot stay for ever.’ In that, at least, he was right, for as the autumn slid cold into winter the Danes at last moved.