‘There’ll be ale in the guard house,’ Finan said, meaning one of the chambers inside the twin bastions. ‘I’ll have it sent up here.’
A spear struck the stone between us. The West Saxons on the western wall had seen us, and several had hurled spears, but this was the first to reach us. It skidded off the step and fell down to the road. ‘Bastards will give up soon,’ Finan said.
He was right. The men attacking us along the wall were tired of dying and had become aware that other men would do the fighting instead, and those men were appearing, heralded by blasts from horns that made us all gaze across the northern stretch of Lundene. Closest to us the land was a ruin of old walls, then it dropped to where the Weala brook flowed towards the Temes. Beyond it the land rose to Lundene’s western hill on which stood the ruins of the amphitheatre and, on the amphitheatre’s further side, the walls of the old Roman fortress. And a stream of men was coming from that fort. Many were mounted, most were on foot, but all were in mail, and even as Finan and I watched, a group of horsemen came through the gate surrounded by standard-bearers, their flags bright in the noonday sun.
‘Jesus,’ Finan said quietly.
‘We came here to fight,’ I said.
‘But how many men does he have?’ Finan asked incredulously, because the procession of mailed warriors seemed unending.
I made no answer, instead I climbed back to the wall’s top and stared across the pastureland to the far woods where no horsemen were in sight. For now, it seemed, we were alone, and if Æthelstan’s men did not come from those distant woods we would die alone.
I sent half the men who had been defending the barricades down to stiffen Rumwald’s shield wall, then took one last glance northwards to see no sign of Æthelstan or his men. Come, I urged him silently, if you want a kingdom, come! Then I went down the steps to where a battle must be fought.
It would be a battle, I thought bitterly, to decide which royal arse would warm a throne, and what business did I have deciding the throne of Wessex? Yet fate, that callous bitch, had tied my life’s threads to King Alfred’s dream. Was there really a Christian heaven? If there was then King Alfred would be gazing down on us even now. And what would he want? Of that I had no doubt. He wanted a Christian country of all the men who spoke the Ænglisc tongue, and he wanted that country led by a Christian king. He would be praying for Æthelstan. So damn him, I thought, damn Alfred and his piety, damn his stern face, always so disapproving, damn his righteousness, and damn him for making me fight for his cause a lifetime after his death. Because today, I thought, if Æthelstan did not come, I would die for Alfred’s dream.
I thought of Bebbanburg and its windswept ramparts, I thought of Eadith, of my son, and then of Benedetta, and I wanted to ignore that last regret and so I shouted at Rumwald’s men to get ready. They were in three ranks and had made a small half-circle about the open gate. It was a perilously small shield wall and was about to be attacked by the might of Wessex. It was no longer time to think, to indulge in regrets or to wonder about the Christian heaven, but time to fight. ‘You’re Mercians!’ I shouted. ‘You’ve defeated the Danes, you’ve fought off the Welsh, and now you’ll make a new song of Mercia! A new victory! Your king is coming!’ I knew I lied, but men facing battle do not want truth. ‘Your king is coming!’ I shouted again. ‘So stay firm! I am Uhtred! And I am proud to fight alongside you!’ And the poor doomed bastards cheered as Finan and I pushed through the ranks to stand where the shield wall barred the road.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Finan muttered.
‘I am here.’
And I hurt still from the beating Waormund had given me. I hurt all over. I hurt and I was tired, while the weight of the shield made my left shoulder feel as if an augur was twisting into the joint. I lowered the shield to rest it on the roadway, then looked westwards, but none of the troops coming from the fort had yet appeared out of the Weala’s shallow valley. ‘If I die …’ I began in a very low voice.
‘Quiet,’ Finan snarled, then, much lower, ‘you shouldn’t be here. Go to the rear rank.’
I gave him no answer, nor did I move. In all my years I had never fought anywhere except the front rank. A man who leads others to death’s doorway must lead, not follow. I felt stifled, and so I undid the knot that held the boiled-leather cheek-pieces and let them swing free so I could breathe more easily.
Father Oda paced in front of our wall, talking now to us and seemingly oblivious of the East Anglians behind him. ‘God is with us!’ he called. ‘God is our strength and our shield! Today we shall strike down the forces of evil! Today we fight for God’s country!’
I stopped paying attention because, not far to the west, the first banners were appearing above the lip of the Weala’s valley. And I could hear drums beating. The heartbeat of war was coming nearer. A man a few paces away in our front rank bent over and vomited. ‘Something I ate,’ he said, but that was not true. Our shields were propped against legs that trembled, there was bile in our throats, our stomachs were sour, and our laughter at bad jests was forced.
The first men of Wessex appeared from the shallow valley, a line of grey sparked with spear-points. The
