The Pale Horseman Read online

  THE PALE HORSEMAN

  is for

  George MacDonald Fraser,

  in admiration.

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  PLACE-NAMES

  ONE

  These days I look at twenty-year-olds and think they are…

  TWO

  My anger was not slaked by Oswald’s killing. The death…

  THREE

  The crew of the Eftwyrd turned Fyrdraca had been at…

  FOUR

  I love the sea. I grew up beside it, though…

  FIVE

  Mildrith was excited by the summons. The witan gave the…

  SIX

  Steapa recovered his wits before I did. He stared openmouthed…

  SEVEN

  The kingdom of Wessex was now a swamp and, for…

  EIGHT

  Before the Pedredan reaches the sea it makes a great…

  NINE

  Ragnar embraced me. There were tears in both our eyes…

  TEN

  We rode south. We went cautiously, for folk said the…

  ELEVEN

  You will have many sons,” Iseult told me. It was…

  TWELVE

  Most men came in large groups, led by their thegns,…

  THIRTEEN

  The Danes made their battle thunder and we prayed. Alewold…

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY BERNARD CORNWELL

  COVER

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  MAP

  Ac her forþ berað; fugelas singað, gylleð græghama.

  For here starts war, carrion birds sing,

  and gray wolves howl.

  (From The Fight at Finnsburh)

  PLACE-NAMES

  The spelling of place-names in Anglo-Saxon England was an uncertain business, with no consistency and no agreement even about the name itself. Thus London was variously rendered as Lundonia, Lundenberg, Lundenne, Lundene, Lundenwic, Lundenceaster, and Lundres. Doubtless some readers will prefer other versions of the names listed below, but I have usually employed whichever spelling is cited in the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names for the years nearest or contained within Alfred’s reign, A.D. 871–899, but even that solution is not foolproof. Hayling Island, in 956, was written as both Heilincigae and Hæglingaiggæ. Nor have I been consistent myself; I use England instead of Englaland, and have preferred the modern form Northumbria to Norðhymbralond to avoid the suggestion that the boundaries of the ancient kingdom coincide with those of the modern county. So this list, like the spellings themselves, is capricious.

  Æsc’s Hill

  Ashdown, Berkshire

  Ætheling Aeg

  Athelney, Somerset

  Afen

  River Avon, Wiltshire

  Andefera

  Andover, Wiltshire

  Baðum (pronounced Bathum)

  Bath, Avon

  Bebbanburg

  Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland

  Brant

  Brent Knoll, Somerset

  Bru

  River Brue, Somerset

  Cippanhamm

  Chippenham, Wiltshire

  Cracgelad

  Cricklade, Wiltshire

  Cridianton

  Crediton, Devon

  Cynuit

  Cynuit Hillfort, near Cannington, Somerset

  Contwaraburg

  Canterbury, Kent

  Cornwalum

  Cornwall

  Dærentmora

  Dartmoor, Devon

  Defereal

  Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire

  Defnascir

  Devonshire

  Dornwaraceaster

  Dorchester, Dorset

  Dreyndynas

  “Fort of thorns,” fictional, set in Cornwall

  Dunholm

  Durham, County Durham

  Dyfed

  Southwest Wales, mostly now Pembrokeshire

  Dyflin

  Dublin, Eire

  Eoferwic

  York (also the Danish Jorvic, pronounced Yorvik)

  Ethandun

  Edington, Wiltshire

  Exanceaster

  Exeter, Devon

  Exanmynster

  Exminster, Devon

  Gewæsc

  The Wash

  Gifle

  Yeovil, Somerset

  Gleawecestre

  Gloucester, Gloucestershire

  Glwysing

  Welsh kingdom, approximately Glamo

  Brant

  Brent Knoll, Somerset

  Bru

  River Brue, Somerset

  Cippanhamm

  Chippenham, Wiltshire

  Cracgelad

  Cricklade, Wiltshire

  Cridianton

  Crediton, Devon

  Cynuit

  Cynuit Hillfort, near Cannington, Somerset

  Contwaraburg

  Canterbury, Kent

  Cornwalum

  Cornwall

  Dærentmora

  Dartmoor, Devon

  Defereal

  Kingston Deverill, Wiltshire

  Defnascir

  Devonshire

  Dornwaraceaster

  Dorchester, Dorset

  Dreyndynas

  “Fort of thorns,” fictional, set in Cornwall

  Dunholm

  Durham, County Durham

  Dyfed

  Southwest Wales, mostly now Pembrokeshire

  Dyflin

  Dublin, Eire

  Eoferwic

  York (also the Danish Jorvic, pronounced Yorvik)

  Ethandun

  Edington, Wiltshire

  Exanceaster

  Exeter, Devon

  Exanmynster

  Exminster, Devon

  Gewæsc

  The Wash

  Gifle

  Yeovil, Somerset

  Gleawecestre

  Gloucester, Gloucestershire

  Glwysing

  Welsh kingdom, approximately Glamorgan and Gwent

  Hamptonscir

  Hampshire

  Hamtun

  Southampton, Hampshire

  Lindisfarena

  Lindisfarne (Holy Island), Northumberland

  Lundene

  London

  Lundi

  Lundy Island, Devon

  Mærlebeorg

  Marlborough, Wiltshire

  Ocmundtun

  Okehampton, Devon

  Palfleot

  Pawlett, Somerset

  Pedredan

  River Parrett

  Penwith

  Land’s End, Cornwall

  Readingum

  Reading, Berkshire

  Sæfern

  River Severn

  Sceapig

  Isle of Sheppey, Kent

  Scireburnan

  Sherborne, Dorset

  Sillans

  The Scilly Isles

  Soppan Byrg

  Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire

  Sumorsæte

  Somerset

  Suth Seaxa

  Sussex (South Saxons)

  Tamur

  River Tamar

  Temes

  River Thames

  Thon

  River Tone, Somerset

  Thornsæta

  Dorset

  Uisc

  River Exe

  Werham

  Wareham, Dorset

  Wilig

  River Wylye

  Wiltunscir

  Wiltshire

  Winburnan

  Wimborne Minster, Dorset

  Wintanceaster

  Winchester, Hampshire

  ONE

  These days I look at twenty-year-olds
and think they are pathetically young, scarcely weaned from their mothers’ tits, but when I was twenty I considered myself a full-grown man. I had fathered a child, fought in the shield wall, and was loath to take advice from anyone. In short I was arrogant, stupid, and headstrong. Which is why, after our victory at Cynuit, I did the wrong thing.

  We had fought the Danes beside the ocean, where the river runs from the great swamp and the Sæfern Sea slaps on a muddy shore, and there we had beaten them. We had made a great slaughter and I, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, had done my part. More than my part, for at the battle’s end, when the great Ubba Lothbrokson, most feared of all the Danish leaders, had carved into our shield wall with his great war ax, I had faced him, beaten him, and sent him to join the einherjar, that army of the dead who feast and swive in Odin’s corpse hall.

  What I should have done then, what Leofric told me to do, was ride hard to Exanceaster where Alfred, King of the West Saxons, was besieging Guthrum. I should have arrived deep in the night, woken the king from his sleep, and laid Ubba’s battle banner of the black raven and Ubba’s great war ax, its blade still crusted with blood, at Alfred’s feet. I should have given the king the good news that the Danish army was beaten, that the few survivors had taken to their dragon-headed ships, that Wessex was safe, and that I, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, had achieved all of those things.

  Instead I rode to find my wife and child.

  At twenty years old I would rather have been plowing Mildrith than reaping the rewards of my good fortune, and that is what I did wrong, but, looking back, I have few regrets. Fate is inexorable, and Mildrith, though I had not wanted to marry her and though I came to detest her, was a lovely field to plow.

  So, in that late spring of the year 877, I spent the Saturday riding to Cridianton instead of going to Alfred. I took twenty men with me and I promised Leofric that we would be at Exanceaster by midday on Sunday and I would make certain Alfred knew we had won his battle and saved his kingdom.

  “Odda the Younger will be there by now,” Leofric warned me. Leofric was almost twice my age, a warrior hardened by years of fighting the Danes. “Did you hear me?” he asked when I said nothing.

  “Odda the Younger will be there by now,” he said again, “and he’s a piece of goose shit who’ll take all the credit.”

  “The truth cannot be hidden,” I said loftily.

  Leofric mocked that. He was a bearded squat brute of a man who should have been the commander of Alfred’s fleet, but he was not well born and Alfred had reluctantly given me charge of the twelve ships because I was an ealdorman, a noble, and it was only fitting that a high-born man should command the West Saxon fleet even though it had been much too puny to confront the massive array of Danish ships that had come to Wessex’s south coast. “There are times,” Leofric grumbled, “when you are an earsling.” An earsling was something that had dropped out of a creature’s backside and was one of Leofric’s favorite insults. We were friends.

  “We’ll see Alfred tomorrow,” I said.

  “And Odda the Younger,” Leofric said patiently, “has seen him today.”

  Odda the Younger was the son of Odda the Elder who had given my wife shelter, and the son did not like me. He did not like me because he wanted to plow Mildrith, which was reason enough for him to dislike me. He was also, as Leofric said, a piece of goose shit, slippery and slick, which was reason enough for me to dislike him.

  “We shall see Alfred tomorrow,” I said again, and next morning we all rode to Exanceaster, my men escorting Mildrith, our son, and his nurse, and we found Alfred on the northern side of Exanceaster where his green-and-white dragon banner flew above his tents. Other banners snapped in the damp wind, a colorful array of beasts, crosses, saints, and weapons announcing that the great men of Wessex were with their king. One of those banners showed a black stag, which confirmed that Leofric had been right and that Odda the Younger was here in south Defnascir. Outside the camp, between its southern margin and the city walls, was a great pavilion made of sailcloth stretched across guyed poles, and that told me that Alfred, instead of fighting Guthrum, was talking to him. They were negotiating a truce, though not on that day, for it was a Sunday and Alfred would do no work on a Sunday if he could help it. I found him on his knees in a makeshift church made from another poled sailcloth, and all his nobles and thegns were arrayed behind him, and some of those men turned as they heard our horses’ hooves. Odda the Younger was one of those who turned and I saw the apprehension show on his narrow face.

  The bishop who was conducting the service paused to let the congregation make a response, and that gave Odda an excuse to look away from me. He was kneeling close to Alfred, very close, suggesting that he was high in the king’s favor, and I did not doubt that he had brought the dead Ubba’s raven banner and war ax to Exanceaster and claimed the credit for the fight beside the sea. “One day,” I said to Leofric, “I shall slit that bastard from the crotch to the gullet and dance on his offal.”

  “You should have done it yesterday.”

  A priest had been kneeling close to the altar, one of the many priests who always accompanied Alfred, and he saw me and slid backward as unobtrusively as he could until he was able to stand and hurry toward me. He had red hair, a squint, a palsied left hand, and an expression of astonished joy on his ugly face. “Uhtred!” he called as he ran toward our horses. “Uhtred! We thought you were dead!”

  “Me?” I grinned at the priest. “Dead?”

  “You were a hostage!”

  I had been one of the dozen English hostages in Werham, but while the others had been murdered by Guthrum, I had been spared because of Earl Ragnar who was a Danish war-chief and as close to me as a brother. “I didn’t die, father,” I said to the priest, whose name was Beocca, “and I’m surprised you did not know that.”

  “How could I know it?”

  “Because I was at Cynuit, father, and Odda the Younger could have told you that I was there and that I lived.”

  I was staring at Odda as I spoke and Beocca caught the grimness in my voice. “You were at Cynuit?” he asked nervously.

  “Odda the Younger didn’t tell you?”

  “He said nothing.”

  “Nothing!” I kicked my horse forward, forcing it between the kneeling men and thus closer to Odda. Beocca tried to stop me, but I pushed his hand away from my bridle. Leofric, wiser than me, held back, but I pushed the horse into the back rows of the congregation until the press of worshippers made it impossible to advance farther, and then I stared at Odda as I spoke to Beocca. “He didn’t describe Ubba’s death?” I asked.

  “He says Ubba died in the shield wall,” Beocca said, his voice a hiss so that he did not disturb the liturgy, “and that many men contributed to his death.”

  “Is that all he told you?”

  “He says he faced Ubba himself,” Beocca said.

  “So who do men think killed Ubba Lothbrokson?” I asked.

  Beocca could sense trouble coming and he tried to calm me. “We can talk of these things later,” he said, “but for now, Uhtred, join us in prayer.” He used my name rather than calling me lord because he had known me since I was a child. Beocca, like me, was a Northumbrian, and he had been my father’s priest, but when the Danes took our country he had come to Wessex to join those Saxons who still resisted the invaders. “This is a time for prayer,” he insisted, “not for quarrels.”

  But I was in a mood for quarrels. “Who do men say killed Ubba Lothbrokson?” I asked again.

  “They give thanks to God that the pagan is dead.” Beocca evaded my question and tried to hush my voice with frantic gestures from his palsied left hand.

  “Who do you think killed Ubba?” I asked, and when Beocca did not answer, I provided the answer for him. “You think Odda the Younger killed him?” I could see that Beocca did believe that, and the anger surged in me. “Ubba fought me man on man,” I said, too loudly now, “one on one, just me and him. My sword against his ax. And he was unwounded when the figh
t began, father, and at the end of it he was dead. He had gone to his brothers in the corpse hall.” I was furious now and my voice had risen until I was shouting, and the distracted congregation all turned to stare at me. The bishop, whom I recognized as the bishop of Exanceaster, the same man who had married me to Mildrith, frowned nervously. Only Alfred seemed unmoved by the interruption, but then, reluctantly, he stood and turned toward me as his wife, the pinch-faced Ælswith, hissed into his ear.

  “Is there any man here,” I was still shouting, “who will deny that I, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, killed Ubba Lothbrokson in single combat?”

  There was silence. I had not intended to disrupt the service, but monstrous pride and ungovernable rage had driven me to defiance. The faces gazed at me, the banners flapped in the desultory wind, and the small rain dripped from the edges of the sailcloth awning. Still no one answered me, but men saw that I was staring at Odda the Younger and some looked to him for a response, but he was struck dumb. “Who killed Ubba?” I shouted at him.

  “This is not seemly,” Alfred said angrily.

  “This killed Ubba!” I declared, and I drew Serpent-Breath.

  And that was my next mistake.

  In the winter, while I was mewed up in Werham as one of the hostages given to Guthrum, a new law had been passed in Wessex, a law which decreed that no man other than the royal bodyguards was to draw a weapon in the presence of the king. The law was not just to protect Alfred, but also to prevent the quarrels between his great men becoming lethal and, by drawing Serpent-Breath, I had unwittingly broken the law so that his household troops were suddenly converging on me with spears and drawn swords until Alfred, red-cloaked and bare-headed, shouted for every man to be still.