Two priests mounted on geldings and six spearmen on stallions waited behind Æthelhelm. The spearmen were plainly guarding Ælfweard and his uncle, as was the horseman whose tall stallion stood to Æthelhelm’s left, a horseman who looked too big for his horse. It was Waormund, a looming and baleful figure who, in contrast to the other horsemen, was shabby. His mail was dull, his stag-painted shield was deeply scored by blades, and his battered helmet had no cheek-pieces. He was grinning. This was Waormund’s delight. He had an enemy shield wall to break and men to kill and, as if he could not wait for the slaughter to begin, he swung himself out of the saddle, looked at us derisively, and spat.
Then he drew his sword. He drew Serpent-Breath. He drew my sword, the whorls on her steel blade reflecting a lance of sunlight to dazzle me. He spat towards us a second time, then turned and swept Serpent-Breath up in a salute to Ælfweard. ‘Lord King!’ he bellowed.
It seemed to me that Ælfweard giggled in reply. He was certainly laughing as his troops all shouted the same words, ‘Lord King! Lord King!’ They chanted it, still beating their swords against their shields until Æthelhelm held up a leather-gloved hand to silence them and kicked his stallion forward.
‘He doesn’t know you’re here,’ Finan muttered to me. He meant Waormund. My cheek-pieces were open, but I was holding the shield high, half obscuring my face.
‘He’ll find out,’ I said grimly.
‘But I fight him,’ Finan insisted, ‘not you.’
‘Men of Mercia!’ Æthelhelm shouted, then waited for silence. I saw him glance up to the western walls and gaze intently for an instant, and I realised he was watching for a signal that Æthelstan’s forces were coming. He looked back to us, betraying no alarm. ‘Men of Mercia!’ he called again, then beckoned for a standard-bearer to come forward. The man waved his flag slowly, the new flag on which the stag of Æthelhelm dominated the dragon of Wessex.
Æthelhelm has loosened the gold-chased cheek-pieces of his helmet so that men could see his narrow face; a handsome face, long and commanding, clean shaven and with deep-set brown eyes. He pointed to the flag. ‘That flag,’ he called, ‘is the new flag of Englaland! It is our flag! Your flag and my flag, the flag of one country under one king!’
‘King Æthelstan!’ a man shouted from our ranks.
Æthelhelm ignored the shout. I saw him glance again to the walls, then look back to us unperturbed. ‘One country!’ he said, his voice easily carrying to the men on the ramparts. ‘It will be our country! Yours and mine! We are not enemies! The enemy are the pagans, and where are the pagans? Where do the hated Northmen rule? In Northumbria! Join me and I promise that every man here will share in the wealth of that heathen country. You will have land! You will have silver! You will have women!’
Ælfweard grinned at that and said something to Waormund, who gave a bark of laughter. He still held Serpent-Breath. ‘Your king,’ Æthelhelm pointed to his grinning nephew, ‘is King of Wessex, King of East Anglia, and he offers you pardon, mercy and forgiveness. He offers you life!’ Again a quick glance at the far walls. ‘Together,’ Æthelhelm went on, ‘we will make one country of all the Saxons!’
‘Of all Christians!’ Father Oda called. Æthelhelm looked at the priest and must have recognised him as the man who had fled his service in disgust, but he betrayed no annoyance, just smiled. ‘Father Oda is right,’ he shouted, ‘we will make a country for all Christian men! And Northumbria is the land of Guthfrith the Pagan and together we shall take his land, and you, the men of Mercia, will be given their steadings, their woodlands, their flocks, their herds, their young women, and their pastures!’
Guthfrith? Guthfrith! I stared at Æthelhelm in a daze. Guthfrith was Sigtryggr’s brother, and if he was indeed king, then Sigtryggr, my ally, was dead. And if he was dead and if it was the plague that had killed him, then who else had died in Eoferwic? Sigtryggr’s heir was my grandson who was too young to rule, but Guthfrith had taken the throne? ‘Lord,’ Finan muttered, nudging me with his sword arm.
‘Fight me here,’ Æthelhelm called, ‘and you fight against God’s anointed king! You fight for a bastard, born to a whore! But drop your shields and sheathe your swords and I will grant you the land of our real enemy, the enemy of all Christian Englaland! I will give you Northumbria!’ He paused, there was silence, and I realised that Rumwald’s men were listening, and that they were almost persuaded that the lies Æthelhelm told were the truth. ‘I will give you wealth!’ Æthelhelm promised. ‘I will give you the land of Northumbria!’
‘It’s not yours to give,’ I snarled. ‘You faithless bastard, you earsling, you son of a poxed whore, you piece of slug shit, you liar!’ Finan tried to restrain me, but I shook him off and stepped forward. ‘You are slime from a cesspit,’ I spat at Æthelhelm, ‘and I will give your lands,
