King. Haraldr ordered his spear-bristled shield-wall to open and admit them.
Haraldr dispatched Tostig as his ambassador. He watched from thirty ells away as Tostig conversed with the King’s representative, who remained sitting proudly in his saddle. It was obvious that the dialogue was as stiff and formal as the emissary’s postures. After a curt exchange the horsemen bowed and rode back through the shield- wall. Tostig returned to Haraldr.
‘He offers me a third of his kingdom if I will abandon you,’ said Tostig.
‘Indeed. And what is offered Norway’s King?’
‘He offers you seven feet of English earth.’
Haraldr laughed. ‘Well spoken. Do you wish to accept his parlay?’
‘Too little and too late. I will take what is offered the King of Norway.’
Haraldr nodded; Ulfr had not been wrong. ‘Who was the man you spoke with? He was a fine sight, so tall in his stirrups for a little man.’
Tostig dropped his dark grey eyes. ‘That was the King Harold Godwinnson.’
Haraldr’s rage flared momentarily; had he known, he might have sacrificed his honour to save his men. But kinship was the strangest of all bonds; he had seen that time and again in his life. ‘I understand why you would not give him up,’ said Haraldr after his anger had subsided. ‘I am grateful you did not give me up.’ Haraldr laughed again. ‘Seven feet of English earth. A man once told me that a king would one day show me mercy. But then that particular man was a craven liar.’ Haraldr turned to Styrkar. ‘We have not accepted terms. Tell the men their king has composed some verse for them.’
Haraldr was announced, and for a moment he stood silently at the centre of the immense, square shield- fort. He wondered if Odin had merely fooled him with the verses that had seemed so fully formed minutes ago. He had become too much a Christian. Odin had been the boy’s god. And then the wind rustled from the spirit world and he found the words. The ring of spear points around him seemed ineffably beautiful, like a garden of silver blossoms.
When he was finished with the words, he could hear only the wind whistling in his ears.
‘Hold them back, Styrkar!’ The grotesque carpet of fallen Englishmen sprawled over the slope beneath the Norse shield-wall; the shadows of the dead had lengthened in the descending sun and begun to take on eerie life, as if they were dark little demons fleeing the flesh. The English cavalry had not sortied against the invincible Norse defences for a quarter of an hour now, a quarter of an hour in which the frenzy of the Norsemen had built with the violent suddenness of a summer storm. And now came the thunder of axes on shields, the footsteps of an army of Titans, unbidden by the Norse commanders, the spontaneous rage of men who had fought well all afternoon as defenders and now lusted for their own attack.
‘Hold them back!’ Haraldr shouted again, but he was already too late. The shield-wall bulged into a broad snout, and then the bright cloaks and gleaming steel blades and helms swept down the rise.
Nothing could be done to stop the mass suicide. The wall that the overwhelming English force had been unable to dent had now been broken by the very will that had kept it intact all afternoon. The din below was deafening as English cavalry and infantry rallied along their broad front on the river. Even Styrkar and Tostig had disappeared into the raging fray. As the Norse charged to the river, the entire English formation seemed to contract, an enormous organism preparing to engulf and ingest the Norse salient. Quickly the massed Norse attack was isolated into desperate pockets of survival. Haraldr had fostered the cult of bravery among his men, and now their deaths were their terrible homage to him. Haraldr stood on the plateau above the trickling coppery Derwent and realized that there was only one way to save Norway’s legacy. Follow the doomed attack with an assault of such devastating force that the shield-wall could re-form.
Haraldr turned and faced the weapon-bristled ring of his house-karls, four score strong, the bravest men in the north. No words were necessary. Their proud eyes glowed with the fury of their calling. He wondered for a moment if he was still equal to such youthful passion. And then he mastered his fear with the reflex of a lifetime. Too many had gone before him, were waiting for him, for death to daunt his breast now.
The Norse boar plunged down the embankment, at its deadly snout the King of Norway, the gold-threaded banner called Landravager snapping in the breeze above him. And as the Norse house-karls ripped aside the English ranks, the golden dragon above the head of the King of Norway moved inexorably towards the golden Dragon of Wessex flying above England’s King. But Haraldr Sigurdarson was only vaguely conscious of this collision of destinies. He knew only the cold black wind of the spirit world. He did not know how long he remained in the underworld, only that his quest in the darkness was much longer than ever before. And he emerged to a silent world viewed through a strange glass that scattered images of banners and bright cloaks and thrusting diamond- tipped spears like the tesserae of a shattered mosaic, yet presented the tiniest details in the sharpest focus: the white halo on the edge of a swinging sword, the sparks leaping like tiny fireflies as a javelin pierced a steel byrnnie.
Finally Haraldr saw the golden Dragon of Wessex, just beyond the cobbled ford a hundred ells south of Stamford Bridge; he could almost distinguish the separate threads of the embroidery. The King beyond the creek . . . and destiny’s conundrum. Would he die this time, to serve the fate he had cheated once, or had he always been fated to conquer this way? The King beyond the creek. Odin chose for him. With a scream that literally brought the rank of English infantry before him to their knees, the Norse King charged forward, leaving even the precarious sanctuary at the snout of the boar behind.
The mounted guard of the English King fell back from the single scything axe of Haraldr Sigurdarson, transfixed by the inevitability of his blade. Haraldr charged them, mindless of the corpses he stepped over, and felt the water cold in his boots. For an instant he met the eyes of Harold Godwinnson, before the English King was crowded back by his retreating guard. Destiny’s merchant began to ford the shallow Derwent to victory.
After three steps Haraldr focused on another fragmented epiphany across the river. The thick, rough fingers whitened against the bowstring, and Haraldr glanced up at the English archer’s eyes and saw the red-black gleam of the raven. The arrow was still for a moment, and he could see the trueness of the shaft and the black steel barb at its head. Then the arrow blurred and flew across the river. Haraldr heard the instant, thrumming skirl just before the barb struck him in the neck. The contact felt like nothing more than a hard blow from the hand in a wrestling match. Haraldr braced himself, awaiting the adversaries who even now would not come against him. His house-karls closed behind him. Then he felt the warmth over his collarbone and was surprised to find that he had fallen to his knees. His guard swept past him, and now every sound of the battle came to him: the music of steel, the shattering of wood and the cracking of bones, the curses and grunts of men, and the high-pitched terror of horses.
He could no longer stay on his knees and fell back, but something caught his head and held him up. He did not recognize the face looming above him until the skald Thjodolf spoke; he could not make sense of the words but somehow knew the voice over the shouts of his house-karls. He was conscious; he knew that Thjodolf and some of his house-karls had pulled him to the east bank of the narrow river. He thought he would live until he tried to breathe and felt the blood in his windpipe.
Tostig was beside him. ‘Accept . . . your brother’s . . . terms,’ gasped Haraldr, ‘as . . . I have. Save yourself . . . and my men.’
‘They will not accept that, nor will I. I will drink with you tonight, Haraldr Hardraada.’ Haraldr could not answer, and he closed his eyes and accepted the beauty of his death, in the arms of a skald and a brave man, his house-karls still fierce around him. The gods loved him still. He saw the beautiful, vivid images of the life that lingered in death’s shadow: eight years old, in a dark cool forest, his fingers against the grainy surface of a rune stone. Olaf bringing him a toy ship. Elisevett as a girl, her downy cheek. Maria, her eyes like blue lanterns in the night. Daughter Maria, making a face at him as he sat in counsel on his high seat. Even his father, Sygurd Syr, more clearly than he had ever seen him. So much beauty, the deaths forgotten, only life. And then the cold hands
