wedge-shaped, but my men were still staying together and I led them toward the sudden fury. A horse reared at me, hooves flailing, and I let my shield take the thumping blows. The stallion snapped its teeth at me and the rider hacked down with a sword that was stopped by the shield’s iron rim. My men were encircling the attackers, who realized their danger and pulled away, and it was then I saw why they had attacked in the first place. They had come to rescue Harald. Two of my men had captured Harald’s standard, the red-colored wolf-skull still fixed to its ax-banner staff, but Harald himself lay in blood among pea-plants. I shouted that we should capture him, but the horse was in my way and the rider was still slashing wildly with the sword. I rammed Wasp-Sting into the beast’s belly and saw Harald being dragged backward by his ankles. A huge Dane threw Harald over a saddle and other men led the horse away. I tried to reach him, but Wasp-Sting was embedded in the shuddering horse and the rider was still ineptly trying to kill me, so I let go of the short-sword’s hilt, grabbed his wrist, and hauled. I heard a shriek as the rider toppled from the saddle. “Kill him,” I snarled at the man beside me, then pulled Wasp-Sting free, but it was too late, the Danes had managed to rescue the wounded Harald.
I sheathed Wasp-Sting and drew Serpent-Breath. There would be no more shield wall fighting this day, because now we would hunt the Danes through Fearnhamme’s alleys and beyond. Most of Harald’s men fled eastward, but not all. Our two attacks had pinched Harald’s horde, splitting it, and some had to run westward, deeper into Wessex. The first Saxon horsemen were crossing the river now and they pursued the fugitives. The Danes that survived that pursuit would be hunted by peasants. The men who went eastward, the ones who carried their fallen leader, were more numerous and they checked to rally a half-mile away, though as soon as West Saxon horsemen appeared those Danes went on retreating. And still there were Danes in Fearnhamme, men who had taken refuge in the houses where we hunted them like rats. They shouted for mercy, but we showed none because we were still under the thrall of ?thelfl?d’s savage wish.
I killed a man on a dungheap, hacking him down with Serpent-Breath and slicing his throat with her point. Finan chased two into a house and I hurried after him, but both were dead when I crashed through the door. Finan tossed me a golden arm ring, then we both went into the sunlit chaos. Horsemen cantered up the street, looking for victims. I heard shouting from behind a hovel and Finan and I ran there to see a huge Dane, bright with silver and gold rings and with a golden chain about his neck, fighting off three Mercians. He was a shipmaster, I guessed, a man who had brought his crews to Harald’s service in hope of finding West Saxon lands, but instead he was finding a West Saxon grave. He was good and fast, his sword and his battered shield holding off his attackers, and then he saw me and recognized the wealth in my war-gear and, at the same moment, the three Mercians stepped back as if to give me the privilege of killing the big man. “Hold your sword tight,” I told him.
He nodded. He glanced at the hammer hanging at my neck. He was sweating, but not with fear. It was a warm day and we were all in leather and mail.
“Wait for me in the feast hall,” I said.
“My name is Othar.”
“Uhtred.”
“Othar the Storm-Rider,” he said.
“I have heard that name,” I said politely, though I had not. Othar wanted me to know so that I could tell men that Othar the Storm-Rider had died well, and I had told him to keep a tight hold of his sword so that Othar the Storm-Rider would go to the feast hall in Valhalla where all warriors who die bravely go after death. These days, although I am old and feeble, I always wear a sword, so that when death comes I will go to that far hall where men like Othar wait for me. I look forward to meeting them.
“The sword,” he said, lifting the weapon, “is called Brightfire.” He kissed the blade. “She has served me well.” He paused. “Uhtred of Bebbanburg?”
“Yes.”
“I met ?lfric the Generous,” Othar said.
It took me a heartbeat or two to realize he meant my uncle who had usurped my inheritance in Northumbria. “The generous?” I asked.
“How else does he keep his lands?” Othar asked in return, “except by paying Danes to stay away?”
“I hope to kill him too,” I said.
“He has many warriors,” Othar said, and with that he thrust Brightfire fast, hoping to surprise me, hoping that he could go to Valhalla with my death as a boast, but I was as quick as him and Serpent-Breath sliced the lunge aside and I hammered my shield boss into him, pushing him back, and brought my sword round fast and realized he was not even trying to parry as Serpent-Breath slid across his throat.
I took Brightfire from his dead hand. I had cut his throat to keep his mail from further damage. Mail is expensive, a trophy as valuable as the rings on Othar’s arms.
Fearnhamme was filled with the dead and with the triumphant living. Almost the only Danes to survive were those who had taken refuge in the church, and they only lived because Alfred had crossed the river and insisted that the church was a refuge. He sat in the saddle, his face tight with pain, and the priests surrounded him as the Danes were led out of the church. ?thelred was there, his sword bloody. Aldhelm was grinning. We had won a famous victory, a great victory, and news of the slaughter would spread wherever the northmen took their boats, and shipmasters would know that going to Wessex was a short route to the grave. “Praise God,” Alfred greeted me.
My mail was sheeted with blood. I knew I was grinning like Aldhelm. Father Beocca was almost crying with joy. ?thelfl?d appeared then, still on horseback, and two of her Mercians were leading a prisoner. “She was trying to kill you, Lord Uhtred!” ?thelfl?d said happily, and I realized the prisoner was the rider whose horse I had stabbed with Wasp-Sting.
It was Skade.
?thelred was staring at his wife, no doubt wondering what she did in Fearnhamme dressed in mail, but he had no time to ask because Skade began howling. It was a terrible shrieking like the screams of a woman being eaten by the death-worm, and she tore at her hair and fell to the ground and started writhing. “I curse you all,” she wailed. She grabbed handfuls of earth and rubbed them into her black hair, crammed them into her mouth, and all the time she writhed and screeched. One of her guards was carrying the mail coat she had been wearing in battle, leaving her in a linen shift that she suddenly ripped open to expose her breasts. She smeared earth on her breasts and I had to smile as Edward, beside his father, stared wide-eyed at Skade’s nakedness. Alfred looked even more pained.
“Silence her,” he ordered.
One of the Mercian guards cracked a spear pole across her skull and Skade fell sideways onto the street. There was blood mixed with the soil in her raven hair now, and I thought she was unconscious, but then she spat out the soil and looked up at me. “Cursed,” she snarled.
And one of the spinners took my thread. I like to think she hesitated, but maybe she did not. Maybe she smiled. But whether she hesitated or not, she thrust her bone needle sideways into the darker weave.
Wyrd bi? ful ar?d.
FIVE
Sharp blades thrusting, spear-blades killing
As ?thelred, Lord of Slaughter, slaughtered thousands,
Swelling the river with blood, sword-fed river,
And Aldhelm, noble warrior, followed his lord
Into the battle, hard-fought, felling foemen
And so the poem goes on for many, many, many more lines. I have the parchment in front of me, though I shall burn it in a moment. My name is not mentioned, of course, and that is why I shall burn it. Men die, women die, cattle die, but reputation lives on like the echo of a song. Yet why should men sing of ?thelred? He fought well enough that day, but Fearnhamme was not his battle, it was mine.
I should pay my own poets to write down their songs, but they prefer lying in the sun and drinking my ale and, to be frank, poets bore me. I endure them for the sake of the guests in my hall who expect to hear the harp
