The Burning Land

“Thank you, Steapa,” AEthelflaed said warmly, saving Steapa from his confusion. “You won a magnificent victory! I shall make sure my father knows of your triumph.”

  He brightened at that, but still stammered. “We were lucky, my lady.”

  “We always seem to be lucky when you fight. How is Hedda?”

  “She’s well, lady!” He beamed at her, astonished she should condescend to ask such a question. I could never remember the name of Steapa’s wife, a tiny creature, but AEthelflaed knew, and even knew the name of his son.

  “Is my brother near?” AEthelflaed asked.

  “He was with us in the fight,” Steapa said, “so he must be close, my lady.”

  “I shall find him,” she announced.

  “Not without a bodyguard,” I growled. I suspected some fugitive Danes were still in the woods.

  “The Lord Uhtred thinks I’m a baby who needs protecting,” AEthelflaed told Steapa.

  “He knows best, lady,” Steapa said loyally.

  AEthelflaed’s horse was brought and I cupped my hands to let her mount. I ordered Weohstan and his horsemen to escort her as she rode back toward the smoke of the burning old hall, then I gave Steapa a thump on his back. It was like punching an oak tree. “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “For keeping me alive.”

  “You seemed to be doing well enough,” he muttered.

  “I was just dying slowly,” I said, “till you came along.”

  He grunted and turned to stare down at the fort. “That be a bastard,” he said. “How do we take it?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Has to be done though,” he said, almost as a question.

  “And quickly,” I stressed. It had to be quick because we had our hand on the enemy’s throat, but he still had both arms free. Those arms were the savage troops harrying Mercia who had left their families and ships in Beamfleot, and many of those men valued their ships more than their families. The Danes were opportunists. They attacked where they sensed weakness, but as soon as the fighting became too hard they boarded their ships and sailed away to find feebler prey. If I destroyed this huge fleet then the crews would be stranded in Britain and, if Wessex survived, they could be hunted down and slaughtered. Haesten might be confident that Beamfleot’s new fort was impregnable, but his followers would soon be pressing him to raise our siege. In short, once the Danes ravaging Mercia knew we were a real threat and were present in real numbers, they would want to return to protect their ships and families. “Very quickly,” I added.

  “So we have to cross that ditch,” Steapa said, nodding down at the moat, “and put ladders against the wall.” He made it sound simple.

  “That’s my idea too,” I said.

  “Jesus,” he muttered and made the sign of the cross.

  Horns sounded to the north and I turned to stare across the saddle of land where the scattered corpses of men and horses still lay and where still more horsemen were appearing from the far woods. One rider was carrying a vast dragon banner, which told me the AEtheling Edward had arrived.

  Alfred’s son paused outside the fort, sitting on his horse in the sunlight while servants and packhorses hurried through the gate and up to the larger of the two halls. Both halls were in disrepair. Finan, who had searched them both, joined us on the rampart and said that the halls had been used as stables. “It’ll be like living in a cesspit,” he said.

  Edward still waited beyond the gate with AEthelflaed beside him. “Why isn’t he coming into the fort?” I asked.

  “He has to have a throne,” Finan said, and laughed at the ex pression on my face. “It’s true! They’ve brought him a rug, a throne, and god knows what else. An altar too.”

  “He will be the next king,” Steapa said loyally.

  “Unless I manage to kill the bastard while we’re crossing that wall,” I said, pointing to the Danish fort. Steapa looked shocked, then cheered up when I asked him how Alfred was faring.

  “He’s as good as ever!” Steapa said. “We thought he was dying! He’s much better now. He can ride again, even walk!”

  “I heard he’d died.”

  “He nearly did. They gave him the last rites, but he recovered. He’s gone to Exanceaster.”

  “What’s happening down there?”

  Steapa shrugged. “Danes made a camp and are sitting inside it.”

  “They want Alfred to pay them to leave,” I suggested. I thought of Ragnar, and imagined his unhappiness because Brida would undoubtedly be urging him to assault Exanceaster, but that burh was a hard one to attack. It lay on a hill, the approaches were steep, and Alfred’s trained army was protecting its stout ramparts, which was why, at least by the time Steapa left, the Danes had made no attempt to attack it. “Haesten was clever,” I said.

  “Clever?” Steapa asked.

  “He persuaded the Northumbrians to attack by saying he’d distract Alfred’s army,” I explained, “and then he warned Alfred of the Northumbrian attack to make sure he didn’t have to fight the West Saxons.”

  “He has to fight us,” Steapa growled.

  “Because Alfred is just as clever,” I said. Alfred knew Haesten was the greater threat. If Haesten could be defeated then the Northumbrians would lose heart and, in all likelihood, sail away. Ragnar’s Northumbrians had to be held at bay, which is why so much of the West Saxon army was in Defnascir, but Alfred had sent his son and twelve hundred of his best men to Beamfleot. He wanted me to weaken Haesten, but he wanted much more than that.

  He wanted the AEtheling Edward’s reputation to be burnished by the victory. Alfred had not needed to sent the AEtheling. Steapa and his men were indispensable to me, while Edward was a liability, but Alfred knew his own death could not be too distant and he wanted to be certain that his son succeeded him, and for that he needed to give Edward a warrior’s renown. Which is why he had asked me to give Edward my oath and I reflected bitterly that my refusal had not prevented Alfred from manipulating me so that I was here, fighting for the Christians and fighting for Edward.

  The AEtheling at last entered the fort, his arrival announced by horn blasts. Men knelt as he rode to the hall and I watched him acknowledge the homage with graceful waves of his right hand. He looked young and slight, and I remembered Ragnar asking if I wanted to be King of Wessex and I could not resist a sudden, bitter laugh. Finan glanced at me curiously. “He’ll want us in the hall,” Steapa said.

  The big hall stank. The servants had shoveled the horse dung to one side, and raked out most of the stale floor- rushes, but the hall still reeked like a latrine and buzzed with fat flies. I had feasted here once, back when the hall was lit by fire and loud with laughter and the memory made me wonder if all the great high- beamed feasting halls were doomed to decay.

  There was no dais, so Edward’s chair was set on a great rug and next to him was a stool on which AEthelflaed sat. Behind the brother and sister was a dark group of priests. I knew none of them, but they evidently knew me because four of the six churchmen made the sign of the cross when I approached the makeshift throne.

  Steapa knelt to the AEtheling, Finan bowed, and I nodded my head. Edward evidently expected more obeisance from me and waited, but when it was plain that I had offered him all I was prepared to give he forced a smile. “You did well,” he said in his high voice. There was neither warmth nor conviction in the compliment.

  I slapped Steapa’s back. “Steapa did well, lord.”

  “He is a loyal warrior and a good Christian,” Edward said, implying that I was neither.

  “He’s also a big ugly brute,” I said, “and he makes Danes shit themselves with fear.”

  Edward and the priests all bridled at that. Edward was steeling himself to reprove me when AEthelflaed’s laughter cut across the hall. Edward looked annoyed at the sound, but composed himself. “I am sorry that the Lord AElfwold died,” he said.

  “I share your sorrow, lord.”

  “My father,” he said, “has sent me to c
apture this nest of heathen pirates.” He spoke in the same way that he sat; stiffly. He was horribly conscious of his youth and of his fragile authority, but, like his father, he had intelligent eyes. He was lost in this hall, though. He was frightened of my blood- spattered face, and frightened of most of the older warriors who had been killing Danes when he was still sucking on his wet nurse’s tits. “The question,” he said, “is how.”

  “Steapa already has the answer,” I said.

  Edward looked relieved and Steapa looked alarmed. “Speak, Steapa,” Edward said.

  Steapa looked at me in fright so I answered for him. “We have to cross the moat and climb the wall,” I said, “and we can only do that at low tide, and the Danes know it. They also know we have to do it quickly.”

  There was silence. I had stated the obvious and that clearly disappointed Edward, but what did he expect? That I would have some sorcerous scheme born from pagan wiles? Or did he believe angels would fly from the Christian heaven and attack the Danes inside the fort? There were only two ways to capture Beamfleot. One was to starve the Danes, and we did not have the time to do that, and the other was to storm the walls. Sometimes, in war, simple is the only answer. It is also likely to be a blood- soaked answer, and all the men in the hall knew it. Some looked at me reproachfully, imagining the horror of trying to scale a high palisade manned by murderous Danes. “So,” I went on confidently, “we need to be busy. Weohstan,” I turned to him, “your men will patrol the marshes to stop messengers leaving the fort. Beornoth, take Lord AElfwold’s men and threaten the ship- forts at the creek’s end. You, lord,” I looked at Edward, “your men must start making ladders, and you,” I pointed at the six priests, “what are you good for?”

  Edward just stared at me in horror and the priests looked offended. “They can pray, Lord Uhtred?” AEthelflaed suggested sweetly.

  “Then pray hard,” I told them.

  There was silence again. Men expected a council of war, and Edward, who was notionally in charge, would have liked the pretense that he was making the decisions, but we did not have time to argue. “Ladders,” Edward finally said in a puzzled voice.

  “We climb them,” I said savagely, “and we need at least forty.”

  Edward blinked. I could see he was debating whether to slap me down, but then he must have decided that victory at Beamfleot was preferable to making an enemy. He even managed a smile. “They will be made,” he said graciously.

  “So all we have to do,” I said, “is get them across the moat, then use them to climb the wall.” Edward’s smile faded.

  Because even he knew men would die. Too many men.

  But there was no other way.

  The first problem was crossing the moat, to which end I rode north the next day. I was worried that Haesten would lead his men back to relieve the siege and we sent strong scouting parties west and north to watch for the coming of that army. In the end it never did come. Haesten, it seemed, was confident of Beamfleot’s strength and of the courage of its garrison, so instead of trying to destroy us he sent his raiding parties ever farther into Mercia, attacking unwalled towns and villages that had thought themselves safe because they were close to the West Saxon border. The skies over Mercia were palled with smoke.

  I rode to Thunresleam and found the priest, Heahberht. I told him what I wanted, and Osferth, who was leading the eighteen men who accompanied me, gave the priest a spare horse. “I’ll fall off, lord,” Heahberht said nervously, staring with his one eye at the tall stallion.

  “You’ll be safe,” I said. “Just cling on. That horse will look after you.”

  I had taken Osferth and his men because we were riding north into East Anglia and that was Danish territory. I did not expect trou ble. Any Dane who wished to fight the Saxons would already have ridden with Haesten, so those who had remained on their land probably wanted no part of the war, yet even so it was prudent to ride in force. We were just about to go north from the village when Osferth warned me that more horsemen were approaching, and I turned to see them coming from the woods that screened Beamfleot.

  My first thought was that Haesten’s army must have been seen far to the west and these horsemen rode to warn me, but then one rider raised a dragon banner and I saw it was the flag of the AEtheling Edward. Edward himself was with them, accompanied by a score of warriors and a priest. “I haven’t seen much East Anglian territory,” he explained his presence awkwardly, “and wish to accompany you.”

  “You’re welcome, lord,” I said in a voice that made it amply clear he was not.

  “This is Father Coenwulf,” Edward introduced the priest who gave me a reluctant nod. He was a pale- skinned man, some ten years or so older than Edward. “Father Coenwulf was my tutor,” Edward said with an affectionate tone, “and is now my confessor and friend.”

  “What did you teach him?” I asked Coenwulf, who made no answer, but just stared at me with indignant and very blue eyes.

  “Philosophy,” Edward said, “and the writings of the church fathers.”

  “I learned just one useful lesson as a child,” I told him. “Beware the blow that comes under the shield. This is Father Heahberht,” I gestured at the one- eyed priest, “and this is the AEtheling Edward,” I said to the village priest who almost fell from his horse in terror of meeting such an exalted prince.

  Father Heahberht was our guide. I had asked him where there might be ships, and he had said that he had seen two trading ships being hauled from a river to the north less than a week before. “They aren’t far away, lord,” he had told me. He said the ships belonged to a Danish trader and had been beached for repairs. “But they may not be seaworthy, lord,” he added nervously.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, “just take us there.”

  It was a warm, sun- kissed day. We rode through good farmland that Father Heahberht said belonged to a man called Thorstein who had ridden with Haesten into Mercia. Thorstein had done well for himself. His land was well watered, had fine woodlands and healthy orchards. “Where’s his hall?” I asked Heahberht.

  “We’re going there, lord.”

  “Is this Thorstein a Christian?” Edward wanted to know.

  “He says so, lord,” Heahberht stammered, blushing. He obviously wanted to say more, but fear meant he could not find the words and he just gazed slack- jawed at the AEtheling. Edward waved the priest ahead of us, but the poor man had no idea how to quicken his horse so Osferth leaned over to take his bridle. They trotted ahead with Heahberht gripping the saddle’s pommel for dear life.

  Edward grimaced. “A country priest,” he said dismissively.

  “They do more harm than good,” Coenwulf said. “One of our duties, lord, will be to educate the country clergy.”

  “He wears the short tunic!” Edward observed knowingly. The Pope himself had ordered priests to wear full- length robes, a command Alfred had enthusiastically endorsed.

  “Father Heahberht,” I said, “is a clever man, and a good one. But he’s frightened of you.”

  “Of me!” Edward asked, “why?”

  “Because he’s a peasant,” I said, “but a peasant who learned to read. Can you even imagine how hard it was for him to become a priest? And all his life he’s been pissed on by thegns. So of course he’s scared of you. And he wears a short robe because he can’t afford a long one, and because he lives in mud and shit, and short robes don’t get as filthy as long ones. So how would you feel if you were a peasant who meets a man who might one day be King of Wessex?”

  Edward said nothing, but Father Coenwulf pounced. “Might?” he demanded indignantly.

  “Might indeed,” I said airily. I was goading them, reminding Edward that he had a cousin, AEthelwold, who had more right to the throne than Edward himself, though AEthelwold, Alfred’s nephew, was a poor excuse of a man.

  My words silenced Edward for a while, but Father Coenwulf was made of sterner stuff. “I was surprised, lord,” he broke the silence, “to discover the Lady AEthelflaed
here.”

  “Surprised?” I asked, “why? She’s an adventurous lady.”

  “Her place,” Father Coenwulf said, “is with her husband. My lord the AEtheling will agree with me, is that not so, lord?”

  I glanced at Edward and saw him redden. “She should not be here,” he forced himself to say and I almost laughed aloud. I realized now why he had ridden with us. He was not much interested in seeing a few miles of East Anglia, instead he had come to carry out his father’s instructions, and those instructions were to persuade AEthelflaed to her duty. “Why tell me?” I asked the pair.

  “You have influence over the lady,” Father Coenwulf said grimly.

  We had crossed a watershed and were riding down a long and gentle slope. The path was edged with coppiced willows and there were glimpses of water far ahead, silver sheens bright beneath the pale sky. “So,” I ignored Coenwulf and looked at Edward, “your father sent you to reprove your sister?”

  “It is a Christian duty to remind her of her responsibilities,” he answered very stiffly.

  “I hear he is recovered from his illness,” I said.

  “For which God be praised,” Coenwulf put in.

  “Amen,” Edward said.

  But Alfred could not live long. He was already an old man, well past forty years, and now he was looking to the future. He was doing what he always did, arranging things, tidying things, trying to impose order on a kingdom beset by enemies. He believed his baleful god would punish Wessex if it were not a godly kingdom, and so he was trying to force AEthelflaed back to her husband, or else, I guessed, to a nunnery. There could be no visible sin in Alfred’s family, and that thought inspired me. I looked at Edward again. “Do you know Osferth?” I asked cheerfully. He blushed at that and Father Coenwulf glared as if warning me to take that subject no further. “You haven’t met?” I asked Edward in pretended innocence, then called to Osferth. “Wait for us!”

  Father Coenwulf tried to turn Edward’s horse away, but I caught hold of the bridle and forced the AEtheling to catch up with his half- brother. “Tell me,” I said to Osferth, “how you would make the Mercians fight.”