'They're going to attack, aren't they?' Pyrlig said. The rain had washed much of the blood from his face, but the split in his helmet looked gory. 'I'm all right,' he said, seeing me glance at the damage, 'I've had worse from a row with the wife. But those bastards are coming, aren't they? They want to keep killing us from our right.'
'We can beat them, lord,' I called back to Alfred. 'Put all our men against them. All of then!'
He seemed not to hear.
'Bring Wiglaf's fyrd across, lord!' I appealed to him.
'We can't move Wiglaf,' he said indignantly.
He feared that if he moved the Sumorsaete fyrd from its place in front of the fort then Guthrum would lead all his men out to assault our left flank, but I knew Guthrum was far too cautious to do any such thing. He felt safe behind the turf ramparts and he wanted to stay safe while Svein won the battle for him. Guthrum would not move until our army was broken, then he would launch an assault. But Alfred would not listen. He was a clever man, perhaps as clever as any man born, but he did not understand battle. He did not understand that battle is not just about numbers, it is not about moving tall pieces, and it is not even about who has the advantage in ground, but about passion and madness and a screaming, ungovernable rage.
And so far I had felt none of those things. We in Alfred's household troops had fought well enough, but we had merely defended ourselves. We had not carried slaughter to the enemy, and it is only when you attack that you win. Now, it seemed, we were to defend ourselves again, and Alfred stirred himself to order me and my men to the right of his line.
'Leave the standards with me,' he said, 'and make sure our flank is safe.'
There was honour in that. The right end of the line was where the enemy might try to wrap around us and Alfred needed good men to hold that open flank, and so we formed a tight knot there. Far off across the down I could see the remnants of Osric's fyrd. They were watching us. Some of them, I thought, would return if they thought we were winning, but for the moment they were too full of fear to rejoin Alfred's army.
Svein rode his white horse up and down the face of his shield wall. He was shouting at his troops, encouraging them. Telling them we were weaklings who needed only one push to topple.
'And I looked,' Pyrlig said to me, 'and I saw a pale horse, and the rider's name was death.' I stared at him in astonishment. 'It's from the gospel book,' he explained sheepishly, 'and it just came to my mind.'
'Then put it out of your mind,' I said harshly, 'because our job is to kill him, not fear him.' I turned to tell ?thelwold to make certain he kept his shield up, but saw he had taken a new place in the rear rank. He was better there, I decided, so left him alone.
Svein was shouting that we were lambs waiting to be slaughtered, and his men had begun beating weapons against their shields. There were just over a thousand men in Svein's ranks now, and they would be assaulting Alfred's division that numbered about the same, but the Danes, still had the advantage, for every man in their shield wall was a warrior, while over half our men were from the fyrds of Defnascir, Thomsaeta and Hamptonscir. If we had brought Wiglaf's fyrd to join us we could have overwhelmed Svein, but by the same token he could have swamped us if Guthrum had the courage to leave the fort. Both sides were being cautious. Neither was willing to throw everything into the battle for fear of losing everything.
Svein's horsemen were on the left flank, opposite my men. He wanted us to feel threatened by the riders, but a horse will not charge into a shield wall. It will sheer away, and I would rather face horsemen than foot-soldiers. One horse was tossing its head and I could see blood on its neck. Another horse was lying dead out where the corpses lay in the cold wind that was bringing the first ravens from the north. Black wings in a dull sky. Odin's birds.
'Come and die!' Steapa suddenly shouted. 'Come and die, you bastards! Come on!'
His shout prompted others along our line to call insults to the Danes. Svein turned, apparently surprised by our sudden defiance. His men had started forward, but stopped again, and I realised, with surprise, that they were just as fearful as we were. I had always held the Danes in awe, reckoning them the greatest fighting men under the sky. Alfred, in a moment of gloom, once told me it took four Saxons to beat one Dane, and there was a truth in that, but it was not a binding truth, and it was not true that day for there was no passion in Svein's men. There was unhappiness there, a reluctance to advance, and I reckoned that Guthrum and Svein had quarrelled. Or perhaps the cold, damp wind had quelled everyone's ardour.
'We're going to win this battle!' I shouted, and surprised myself by shouting it.
Men looked at me, wondering if I had been sent a vision by my gods.
'We're going to win!' I was hardly aware of speaking. I had not meant to make a speech, but I made one anyway. 'They're frightened of us!' I called out, 'they're scared! Most of them are skulking in the fort because they daren't come out to face Saxon blades! And those men,' I gestured at Svein's ranks with Wasp-Sting, 'know they're going to die. They're going to die.' I took a few paces forward and spread my arms to get the Danes' attention. I held my shield out to the left and Wasp-Sting to the right. 'You're going to die' I shouted it in Danish, loud as I could, then in English. 'You're going to die!'
And all Alfred's men took up that shout. 'You're going to die! You're going to die!'
Something odd happened then. Beocca and Pyrlig claimed that the spirit of God wafted through our army, and maybe that did happen, or else we suddenly began to believe in ourselves. We believed we could win and as the chant was shouted at the enemy we began to go forward, step by step, beating swords against shields and shouting that the enemy would die. I was ahead of my men, taunting the enemy, screaming at them, dancing as I went, and Alfred called me back to the ranks. Later, when all was done, Beocca told me that Alfred called me repeatedly, but I was capering and shouting, out ahead on the grass where the corpses lay, and I did not hear him. And Alfred's men were following me and he did not call them back though he had not ordered them forward.
'You bastards!' I screamed, 'you goat-turds! You fight like girls!' I do not know what insults I shouted that day, only that I shouted them and that I went ahead, on my own, asking just one of them to come and fight me man to man.
Alfred never approved of those duels between the shield walls. Perhaps, sensibly, he disapproved because he knew he could not have fought one himself, but he also saw them as dangerous. When a man invites an enemy champion to a fight, man on man, he invites his own death, and if he dies he takes the heart from his own side and gives courage to the enemy, and so Alfred ever forbade us to accept Danish challenges, but on that cold wet day one man did accept my challenge.
It was Svein himself. Svein of the White Horse, and he turned the white horse and spurred towards me with his sword in his right hand. I could hear the hooves thumping, see the clods of wet turf flying behind, see the stallion's mane tossing and I could see Svein's boar-masked helmet above the rim of his shield. Man and horse coming for me, and the Danes were jeering and just then Pyrlig shouted at me.
