‘He’s at the ships!’ I called back.
‘Get out of the way!’ The man had been forced to a halt, and his followers milled uncertainly behind him. ‘Get out of the way!’ he bellowed again, angrily. ‘Get out of the way and go back to the harbour!’ He spurred his horse straight at my front rank, evidently expecting us to make way for him.
‘Now!’ I called and drew Serpent-Breath.
Berg slapped his shield hard across the face of the leading man’s stallion. The beast slewed sideways, slipped in the mud and fell. The rest of my front rank was charging into the confused horsemen, using the spears we had captured from Wighelm’s men to savage both horses and men. Terrified beasts reared, riders were dragged from their saddles. Berg hauled the man who had shouted at us from beneath his fallen and floundering horse. ‘Keep that one alive!’ I shouted at him. The enemy, at least those closest to us, had not even had the time to draw their swords, and my men were fast and savage. The women, I could now see they were women, were looking terrified. I ran past them to be faced by a horseman levelling his sword as he spurred his stallion towards me. I hammered his blade aside with Serpent-Breath and then rammed her up into his armpit. I felt her pierce mail and grind on bone, then blood flowed down the blade. Gerbruht ran past me, bellowing in Frisian. Two of the horsemen had managed to turn their beasts and were spurring back towards Fæfresham. ‘Let them go!’ I shouted at Oswi who had begun sprinting after them. He would not catch them and I expected to be at sea long before any help arrived from the town. The man whose shoulder I had wounded had switched his sword to his other hand and now clumsily tried to strike down at me from across his saddle, but then he suddenly vanished, tugged down by Vidarr. I pulled myself onto his horse, gathered the reins, and kicked my heels. ‘Lady Eadgifu!’ I shouted, and one of the grey-hooded women turned to me and I recognised her pale face framed with her raven black hair. ‘Ride on!’ I called to her. ‘Ride on! We have a ship waiting. Go! Beornoth!’
‘Lord?’
‘Get a horse, protect the ladies!’ I could see that three of the women had small children on their saddles. ‘Go!’
Some of the enemy had spurred off the road and were trying to get past us, but the land was a bog, sodden with water, and the horses struggled. Their riders savaged the poor beasts with spurs, the animals whinnied in protest, but could not move. A half-dozen of Finan’s men attacked them with spears that far out-reached the riders’ swords. Two of the enemy simply threw themselves from their saddles and stumbled into the reeds as the others flung down their weapons in surrender. Back on the road Berg was holding his blade at the throat of the group’s leader, who lay flat on his back.
The best ways to win any battle are to surprise the enemy, to outnumber the enemy, and to attack that enemy with such speed and ferocity that he has no idea what is happening until a sword is at his throat or a spear-blade is deep in his guts. We had achieved all three, though at a cost. Immar Hergildson, the least experienced of my men, had seen a red-cloaked rider and thrust up with his spear and so wounded Oswi who had mounted a riderless stallion. Oswi was now cursing and threatening revenge, the horses were still panicking, a woman was screaming, a wounded horse was hammering the road with his hooves, and some of the enemy were scrambling towards the reed beds. ‘Oswi!’ I bellowed. ‘How badly are you hurt?’
‘Scratched, lord.’
‘Then shut your mouth!’
Some of the West Saxons had escaped, but most were our prisoners now, including the young man who had evidently been their leader. Berg was still holding him on the road with the sword at his throat. ‘Let him up,’ I said. I saw that the women were safe, some fifty paces down the road from where they now watched us. ‘What’s your name,’ I demanded of the young man.
He hesitated, unwilling to answer, but a twitch of Serpent-Breath changed his mind. ‘Herewulf,’ he muttered, staring down at his fallen blade.
I leaned down from the saddle and forced his head up with Serpent-Breath’s tip. ‘Do you know who I am?’ He shook his head. ‘I am Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ I said and saw the fear in his eyes, ‘and you call me lord. So what were your orders, Herewulf?’
‘To keep the Lady Eadgifu safe, lord.’
‘Where?’
‘Cippanhamm, lord,’ he said sullenly.
Cippanhamm was a fine town in Wiltunscir and doubtless Herewulf had thought to take the women and children up the Temes, through Lundene, and so to Æthelhelm’s shire. ‘Any news of the king?’ I asked him.
‘He’s still sick, lord,’ he said. ‘That’s all we know.’
‘Take off his mail,’ I ordered Berg. ‘You’re lucky,’ I spoke to Herewulf, ‘because I might leave you alive. Might.’ He just stared at me. ‘What’s happening in Fæfresham?’ I asked.
For a moment he was tempted to be defiant, but I touched Serpent-Breath to his cheek and that loosened his tongue. ‘They’re talking,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Talking?’
‘To the east of the town.’
That made sense. Sigulf had brought warriors to his sister’s aid only to discover a force equal to his own guarding her. If they fought then men would die
