We were about fifty paces from the tavern’s back door when a man came outside. He hunched against the rain, hurried to a shed, struggled with the latched door and, as he pulled it open, turned and saw us. For a heartbeat he just gazed, then he ran back inside. I swore.
I shouted at my men to hurry, but we were so cold, so drenched, that we could manage little more than a fast, stumbling walk, and Wighelm’s men, warm and dry, reacted swiftly. Four men appeared first, each carrying a shield and spear. More men followed, no doubt cursing that they were forced into the storm, but all carrying shields which showed the dark outline of a leaping stag, Æthelhelm’s symbol. I had planned a bloody tavern brawl, and instead the enemy was making a shield wall between the sheds. They faced us with levelled spears, and we had none. They were protected by shields, and we had none.
We stopped. Despite the seething rain and the howl of the wind I could hear the clatter of iron-rimmed shields touching each other. I could see Wighelm, tall and black-bearded, at the centre of the wall that was just thirty paces away.
‘Wolf trap!’ I said, then swerved to my right, beckoning my men to follow, and hurried between two hovels. Once out of sight of Wighelm and his spearmen I turned back the way we had come. We broke down a rough driftwood fence, skirted a dung heap, and filed into another narrow alley between two of the cottages. Once hidden in the alley I held up a hand.
We stopped and none of my men made a noise. A dog howled nearby and a baby cried from inside a hovel. We drew our swords. Waited. I was proud of my men. They knew what I meant by a wolf trap and not one had questioned me or asked what we were doing. They knew because we had trained for this. Wars are not only won on the battlefield, but in the practice yard of fortresses.
Wolves are the enemies of shepherds. Dogs are their friends, but shepherds’ dogs rarely kill a wolf, though they might frighten them away We hunt wolves in Northumbria’s hills and our wolfhounds will kill, yet the wolves are never defeated. They come back, they prey on flocks, they leave bloody carcasses strewn on the grass. I offer a bounty to folk who bring in a fresh, stinking wolf pelt, and I pay the bounty often, yet still the wolves ravage livestock. They can be deterred, they can be hunted, yet wolves are a cunning and subtle enemy. I have known flocks to be regularly attacked, and we have beaten the surrounding woods and hills, ridden with our sharpened wolf spears, sent the hounds searching, and found no trace of a wolf, and next day another dozen sheep or lambs are ripped apart. When that happens we might set a wolf trap, which means that instead of searching for the wolves, we invite them to search for us.
My father liked to use an old ram for the trap. We would tether the beast close to where the wolf pack had made its last kill, then wait in ambush upwind of the bait. I preferred to use a pig, which was more expensive than an aging ram, but more effective too. The pig would squeal in protest at being tethered, a sound that seemed to attract wolves, and squeal even louder when a wolf appeared. Then we would release the hounds, lower spears, and spur to the kill. We lost the pig as often as not, but we killed the wolf.
I had few doubts that my men were better fighters than Wighelm’s troops, but to ask men to attack a shield wall without shields of their own, and without axes to haul down an enemy’s shield or spears to pierce the gaps between the enemy’s shields, is to invite death. We would win, but at a cost I was not willing to pay. I needed to break Wighelm’s shield wall and do it without leaving a couple of my men gutted by his spears. So we waited.
I had made a mistake. I had assumed Wighelm’s men would be sheltering from the storm, and that we could approach the tavern unseen. I should have crept behind the cottages until we were closer, but now I would invite Wighelm to make a mistake. Curiosity would be his undoing, or so I hoped. He had seen us approaching, he had made his shield wall, and then we had vanished into an alley. And we had not reappeared. He would be gazing into the storm, looking past the sheeting rain, wondering if we had retreated southwards. He could not ignore us. Just because we had vanished from his sight did not mean we had fled. He needed to know where we were. He needed to know whether we still barred his road to Fæfresham. He waited a long time, nervously hoping we had gone altogether, or hoping he would catch a glimpse that would tell him where we were, but we did not move, we made no noise, we waited.
I beckoned Oswi to my side. He was young, lithe, cunning, and savage. He had once been my servant before growing old enough and skilled enough to join the shield wall. ‘Sneak up the back of the cottages,’ I told him, pointing southwards, ‘go as far as you can, show yourself, stare at them, show them your naked arse, and then
