of those ramparts that had prompted Alfred to speak with the enemy. He knew men must die, many men, and that was the price he had been unwilling to pay a year before when Guthrum had been trapped in Exanceaster, but it was a price that had to be paid. It was the price of Wessex.
Hrothgar had nothing more to say, so turned away. 'Tell Earl Ragnar,' I called after him, 'that I am still his brother.'
'He will doubtless see you in Valhalla one day,' Hrothgar called back, then waved a negligent hand to me. I suspected that the Danes had never intended to negotiate a truce, let alone a surrender, but when Alfred offered to talk they had accepted because it gave them time to organise their defences.
Alfred scowled at me. He was plainly annoyed that I had intervened, but before he could say anything Beocca spoke. 'What happened to the women?' he asked.
'They fought the bastards off,' I said, 'but Iseult died.'
'Iseult,' Alfred said, and then he saw the tears in my eyes and did not know what to say. He flinched, stuttered incoherently, then closed his eyes as if in prayer. 'I am glad,' he said after he had collected his thoughts, 'that she died a Christian.'
'Amen,' Beocca said.
'I would rather she was a live pagan,' I snarled, and then we went back to our army and Alfred again summoned his commanders. There was really no choice. We had to assault the fort. Alfred talked for a time about establishing a siege, but that was not practical. We would have to sustain an army on the summit of the downs and, though Osric insisted the enemy had no springs inside the fort, neither did we have springs close by. Both armies would be thirsty, and we did not have enough men to stop Danes going down the steep embankment at night to fetch water. And if the siege lasted longer than a week, then men of the fyrd would begin to slip home to look after their fields, and Alfred would be tempted to mercy, especially if Guthrum promised to convert to Christianity.
So we urged an assault on Alfred. There could be nothing clever. Shield walls must be made and men sent against the ramparts, and Alfred knew that every man in the army must join the attack.
Wiglaf and the men of Sumorsaete would attack on the left, Alfred's men in the centre, while Osric, whose fyrd had gathered again and was now reinforced by the men who had deserted from Guthrum's army, would assault on the right.
'You know how to do it,' Alfred said, though without any enthusiasm for he knew he was ordering us into a feast of death, 'put your best men in the centre, let them lead, and make the others press behind and on either side.'
No one said anything. Alfred offered a bitter smile. 'God has smiled on us so far,' he said, 'and he will not desert us.'
Yet he had deserted Iseult. Poor, fragile Iseult, shadow queen and lost soul, and I pushed into the front rank because the only thing I could do for her now was to take revenge.
Steapa, as smothered in blood as I was, pushed into the rank beside me. Leofric was to my left and Pyrlig was now behind me. 'Spears and long swords,' Pyrlig advised us, 'not those short things.'
'Why not?' Leofric asked.
'You climb that steep wall,' he said, 'and all you can do is go for their ankles. Bring them down. I've done it before. You need a long reach and a good shield.'
'Jesus help us,' Leofric said. We were all fearful, for there is little in warfare as daunting as an assault on a fortress. If I had been in my senses I would have been reluctant to make that attack, but I was filled with a keening sorrow for Iseult and nothing except revenge filled my mind.
'Let's go,' I said, 'let's go.'
But we could not go. Men were collecting spears thrown in the earlier fighting, and the bowmen were being brought forward. Whenever we attacked we wanted a shower of spears to precede us, and a plague of stinging arrows to annoy the enemy, but it took time to array the spearmen and archers behind the men who would make the assault.
Then, ominously for our archers, it began to rain again. Their bows would still work, but water weakened the strings. The sky became darker as a great belly of black cloud settled over the down and the rain started to drum on helmets. The Danes were lining the ramparts, clashing their weapons against shields as our army curled about their fastness.
'Forward!' Alfred shouted, and we went towards the ramparts, but stopped just out of bowshot.
Rain headed the rim of my shield. There was a new, bright scar in the iron there, a blade strike, but I had not been aware of the blow. The Danes mocked us. They knew what was coming, and they probably welcomed it. Ever since Guthrum had climbed the escarpment and discovered the fort he had probably imagined Alfred's men assaulting its walls and his men cutting the enemy down as we struggled up the steep banks. This was Guthrum's battle now. He had placed his rival, Svein, and his Saxon ally, Wulfhere, outside the fort, and doubtless he had hoped they could destroy a good part of our army before the assault on the ramparts, but it would not matter much to Guthrum that those men had been destroyed themselves. Now his own men would fight the battle he had always envisaged.
'In the name of God!' Alfred called, then said no more for suddenly a clap of thunder crashed, a vast sound that consumed the heavens and was so loud that some of us flinched. A crack of lightning splintered white inside the fort. The rain pelted now, a cloudburst that hammered and soaked us, and more thunder rolled away in the distance, and perhaps we thought that noise and savage light was a message from God for suddenly the whole army started forward. No one had given a command, unless Alfred's invocation was an order. We just went.
Men were shouting as they advanced. They were not calling insults, but just making a noise to give themselves courage. We did not run, but walked, because the shields had to be kept close. Then another bellow of thunder deafened us, and the rain seemed to have a new and vicious intensity. it seethed of the dead and the living, and we were close now, very close, yet the rain was so thick it was hard to see the waiting Danes. Then 1 saw the ditch, already flooding, and the bows sounded and the spears flew and we were splashing down the ditch's side and Danish spears were thumping into us.
One stuck in my shield, fell away and I stumbled on its shaft, half sprawled in the water, then recovered and began the climb.
Not all the army tried to cross the ditch. Many men's courage faltered at the brink, but a dozen or more groups went into the attack. We were what the Danes call the svinfylkjas, the swinewedges, the elite warriors who try to pierce the skjaldborg like a boar trying to gouge the hunter with its tusks. But this time we not only had to
