'Guthrum would dearly like us to assail the fort,' the king observed.
This caused some confusion for it seemed, according to Alfred, that the Danes wanted us to attack their right just as much as they wanted us to attack their left. The Danes, meanwhile, were jeering at us for not attacking at all. One or two ran towards our lines and screamed insults, and their whole shield wall was still banging weapons in a steady, threatening rhythm. The rain made the colours of the shields darker. The colours were black and red and blue and brown and dirty yellow.
'So what do we do?' Ethelred asked plaintively.
There was silence and I realised that Alfred, though he understood the problem, had no answer to it. Guthrum wanted us to attack and probably did not care whether we went against Svein’s seasoned warriors on the left of the enemy line or against the steep, slippery ditches in front of the fort's walls.
And Guthrum must also have known that we dared not retreat because his men would pursue and break us like a horde of wolves savaging a frightened flock.
'Attack their left,' I said.
Alfred nodded as though he had already come to that conclusion.
'And?' he invited me.
'Attack it with every man we've got,' I said. There were probably two thousand men outside the fort and at least half of those were Saxons. I thought we should assault them in one violent rush, and overwhelm them by numbers. Then the weakness of the Danish position would be revealed, for they were on the very lip of the escarpment and once they were forced over the edge they had nowhere to go but down the long, precipitous slope. We could have destroyed those two thousand men, then reformed our lines for the harder task of attacking the three thousand inside the fort.
'Employ all our men?' Alfred asked. 'But then Guthrum will attack our flank with every man he has.'
'Guthrum won't,' I said. 'He'll send some men to attack our flank, but he'll keep most of his troops inside the fort. He's cautious. He won't abandon the fort, and he won't risk much to save Svein. They don't like each other.'
Alfred thought about it, but I could see he did not like the gamble. He feared that while we attacked Svein the other Danes would charge from the fort and overwhelm our left. I still think he should have taken my advice, but fate is inexorable and he decided to imitate Guthrum by being cautious.
'We will attack on our right,' he said, 'and drive off Wulfhere's men, but we must be ready for their counter- stroke and so our left stays where it is.'
So it was decided. Osric and Arnulf, with the men of Wiltunscir and Suth Seaxa, would give battle to Svein and Wulfhere on the open land to the east of the fort, but we suspected that some Danes would come from behind the ramparts to attack Osric's flank and so Alfred would take his own bodyguard to be a bulwark against that assault. Wigulf, meanwhile, would stay where he was, which meant a third of our men were doing nothing. 'If we can defeat them,' Alfred said, 'then their remnant will retreat into the fort and we can besiege it. They have no water there, do they?’
'None,' Osric confirmed.
'So they're trapped,' Alfred said as though the whole problem was neatly resolved and the battle as good as won. He turned to Bishop Alewold. 'A prayer, bishop, if you would be so kind.'
Alewold prayed, the rain fell, the Danes went on jeering, and I knew the awful moment, the clash of the shield walls, was close. I touched Thor's hammer, then Serpent-Breath's hilt, for death was stalking us. God help me, I thought, touching the hammer again, Thor help us all, for I did not think we could win.
Thir
i t
r ee
e n
The Danes made their battle thunder and we prayed. Alewold harangued God for a long time, mostly begging him to send angels with flaming swords, and those angels would have been useful, though none appeared. It would be tip to us to do the job.
We readied for battle. I took my shield and helmet from the horse that Iseult led, but first I teased out a thick hank of her black hair. ‘Trust me,' I said to her, because she was nervous, and I used a small knife to cut the tress. I tied one end of the hair to Serpent-Breath's hilt and made a loop with the other end, Iseult watched. 'Why?' she asked.
'I can put the loop over my wrist,' I showed her, 'then I can't lose the sword. And your hair will bring me luck.'
Bishop Alewold was angrily demanding that the women go back. Iseult stood on tiptoe to buckle my wolf- crested helmet in place, then she pulled my head down and kissed me through the gap in the faceplate. 'I shall pray for you,' she said.
'So will I,' Hild said.
'Pray to Odin and Thor,' I urged then, then watched as they led the horse away. The women would hold the horses a quarter mile behind our shield wall and Alfred insisted they went that far back so that no man was tempted to make a sudden dash for a horse and gallop away.
It was time to make the shield wall, and that is a cumbersome business. Some men offer to be in the front rank, but most try to be behind, and Osric and his battle-leaders were shoving and shouting as they tried to settle the men. 'God is with us!' Alfred was shouting at them. He was still mounted and rode down Osric's slowly-forming shield wall to encourage the fyrd. 'God is with us!' he shouted again,
'we cannot lose! God is with us!' The rain fell harder. Priests were walking down the lines offering blessings and adding to the rain by throwing handfuls of holy water at the shields. Osric's fyrd was mostly five ranks thick, and behind them was a scatter of men with spears. Their job, as the two sides met, was to hurl the spears over their comrades' heads, and the Danes would have similar spear-throwers readying their own weapons.
'God is with us!' Alfred shouted, 'He is on our side! Heaven watches over us! The holy saints pray for us! The angels guard us! God is with us!' His voice was already hoarse. Men touched amulets for luck, closed their eyes in silent prayer and tugged at buckles. In the front rank they obsessively touched their shields against their neighbour's shields. The right-hand edge of every man's shield was supposed to overlap the next shield so that the Danes were confronted with a solid wall of iron-reinforced limewood. The Danes would make the same wall, but
