A Dane came from the hall, sword in hand, stared in horror and turned back, but Rypere had seen him and galloped by him, seized him by his long hair and dragged him away. Two spears gouged his belly and a stallion trampled him and he writhed, bloody and moaning and we left him there.
‘Oswi!’ I shouted for my servant. ‘Horn!’
More Danes were showing in the south now, many more Danes, and it was time to go. We had hurt the enemy badly, but this was no place to fight against an outnumbering horde. I just wanted the Danes to stay here, trapped by the river, so that Edward could bring the army of Wessex against them and drive them like cattle onto my swords. Oswi kept sounding the horn, the noise frantic.
‘Back!’ I shouted. ‘All of you! Back!’
We went back slowly enough. Our wild charge had killed and wounded at least a hundred men so that the small fields were dotted with bodies. The injured lay in ditches or by hedges, and we left them there. Steapa was grinning, a fearsome sight, his big teeth bared and his sword reddened. ‘Your men are the rearguard,’ I told him, and he nodded. I looked for ?thelflaed and was relieved to see her unharmed. ‘Look after the fugitives,’ I told her. The escaped captives had to be shepherded back. I saw the naked woman dragging two small children by their hands.
I formed my men at the edge of the trees where our charge had started. We waited there, shields on our arms now, swords bright with enemy blood, and we dared the Danes to come at us, but they were disorganised and they were hurt, and they would not risk a charge until they had more men, and once I saw that the fugitives were safely gone north I shouted at my men to follow them.
We had lost five men; two Mercians and three West Saxons, but we had savaged the enemy. Finan had two captives, and I sent them ahead with the fugitives. The bridge was crowded with horses and fleeing people, and I stayed with Steapa, guarding the southern end until I was certain the last of our people was across the river.
We barricaded the northern end of the bridge, heaping logs across the road and inviting the Danes to come and be killed between the Roman parapets. But none did. They watched us work, they gathered in ever greater numbers on the West Saxon side of the river, but they did not come for their revenge. I left Steapa and his men to guard the barricade, certain that no Dane would cross while he was there.
Then I went to question the captives.
The two Danes were being guarded by six of ?thelflaed’s Mercians, who protected them from the fury of a crowd that had gathered in the space before Saint Werburgh’s convent. The crowd fell silent when I arrived, cowed perhaps by Broga whose mouth was still stained with blood. I slid from the saddle and let Oswi take the reins. I still carried Serpent-Breath in my hand, her blade unwashed.
There was a tavern hung with the sign of a goose next to the convent and I had the two men taken into its yard. Their names were Leif and Hakon, both were young, both were frightened and both were trying not to show it. I had the yard gates closed and barred. The two stood in the yard’s centre, surrounded by six of us. Leif, who did not look a day over sixteen, could not take his eyes from Serpent-Breath’s blood-caked blade. ‘You have a choice,’ I told the pair. ‘You can answer my questions and you’ll die with swords in your hands, or you can be obstinate and I’ll strip you both naked and throw you to the folk outside. First, who is your lord?’
‘I serve Jarl Cnut,’ Leif said.
‘And I serve King Eohric,’ Hakon said, his voice so low I almost could not hear him. He was a sturdy, long- faced boy with straw-coloured hair. He wore an old mail coat, ripped at the elbows and too big for him and I suspected it had been his father’s. He also wore a cross about his neck, while Leif had a hammer.
‘Who commands your army?’ I asked them.
They both hesitated. ‘King Eohric?’ Hakon suggested, but he did not sound sure.
‘Jarl Sigurd and Jarl Cnut,’ Leif said, just as uncertainly and almost at the same moment.
And that explained a great deal, I thought. ‘Not ?thelwold?’ I asked.
‘Him too, lord,’ Leif said. He was trembling.
‘Is Beortsig with the army?’
‘Yes, lord, but he serves Jarl Sigurd.’
‘And Jarl Haesten serves Jarl Cnut?’
‘He does, lord,’ Hakon said. ?thelflaed was right, I thought. Too many masters, and no one man in command. Eohric was weak, but he was proud, and he would not be subservient to Sigurd or Cnut, while those two probably despised Eohric, yet had to treat him as a king if they were to have his troops. ‘And how big is the army?’ I asked.
Neither of them knew. Leif thought it was ten thousand strong, which was ludicrous, while Hakon just said they had been assured it was the largest army ever to attack the Saxons. ‘And where is it going?’ I asked.
Again neither knew. They had been told that they would make ?thelwold the King of Wessex and Beortsig the King of Mercia, and those two monarchs would reward them with land, but when I asked if they were going to Wintanceaster they both looked blank and I realised neither had even heard of that city.
I let Finan kill Leif. He died bravely and swiftly, a sword in his hand, but Hakon begged to see a priest before he died. ‘You’re a Dane,’ I told him.
‘And a Christian, lord.’
‘Does no one worship Odin in East Anglia?’
‘Some, lord, but not many.’
That was worrying. Some Danes, I knew, converted because it was convenient. Haesten had insisted his wife and daughters were baptised, but that was only because it yielded better terms from Alfred, though if Offa had not lied about everything before he died then Haesten’s wife was a true believer. These days, as I face my own death and my old age dims the glories of this world, I see nothing but Christians. Perhaps in the far north where the ice grips the summer land there are some folk left who sacrifice to Thor, Odin and Freya, but I know of none in Britain. We slide into darkness, towards the final chaos of Ragnarok, when the seas will burn in turmoil and the land will break and even the gods will die. Hakon did not care whether he held a sword or not, he just wanted to say his prayers, and when they were said we took his head from his shoulders.
I sent more messengers to Edward, only this time I sent Finan because I knew the king would listen to the Irishman, and I sent him with seven other men. They were to ride west before crossing the Temes, then go fast towards Wintanceaster or to wherever else the king might be, and they carried a letter I wrote myself. Men are always surprised that I can read and write, but Beocca taught me when I was a child and I have never lost the skills. Alfred, of course, insisted that all his lords should learn to read, mainly so that he could write his chiding letters to us, but since his death not many bother to learn, yet I still have the skills. I wrote that the Danes were cursed with too many leaders, that they were lingering too long just south of the Temes, that I had slowed them by taking horses and leaving them with a mass of wounded men. Come towards Cracgelad, I urged the king. Collect every warrior, I urged him, call the fyrd, and advance on the Danes from the south and I would be the anvil against which he could beat the enemy into blood, bones and raven-food. If the Danes moved, I said, I would shadow them on the northern bank of the Temes to block their escape, but I doubted they would move far. ‘We have them in our hand, lord King,’ I wrote, ‘and now you must close the fist.’
And then I waited. The Danes did not move. We saw the smoke pyres in the distant southern sky that told us they were scouring a wider area of Wessex, but their main encampment was still not far south of Cracgelad’s bridge, which we now had made into a fortress. No one could cross the bridge unless we allowed it. I went over each day, taking fifty or sixty men to patrol a short distance on the southern bank to make certain the Danes were not moving, and each day I returned to Cracgelad astonished that the enemy was making it so easy for us. At night we could see the glow of their campfires lighting the southern sky and by day we watched the smoke, and in four days nothing changed except the weather. Rain came and went, the wind stirred the river and an early autumn mist obscured the ramparts one morning, and when the mist lifted the Danes were still there.
‘Why aren’t they moving?’ ?thelflaed asked me.
‘Because they can’t agree where to go.’
‘And if you led them,’ she asked, ‘where would they go?’
‘To Wintanceaster,’ I said.
‘And besiege it?’
‘Capture it,’ I said, and that was their difficulty. They knew men would die in the burh’s ditch and on its high wall, but that was no reason not to try. Alfred’s burhs had given the enemy a riddle they could not solve, and I
