The Last Kingdom Read online

  We arrived outside Werham on a chilly autumn evening. Alfred was at his prayers in a tent that was serving as his royal chapel and Ealdorman Odda and his son waited outside and the ealdorman gave me a guarded nod while his son ignored me. Beocca went into the tent to join the prayers while I squatted, drew Serpent-Breath, and sharpened her with the whetstone I carried in my pouch.

  “Expecting to fight?” Ealdorman Odda asked me sourly.

  I looked at his son. “Maybe,” I said, then looked back to the father. “You owe my wife money,” I said, “eighteen shillings.” He reddened, said nothing, though the son put a hand to his sword hilt and that made me smile and stand, Serpent-Breath’s naked blade already in my grip. Ealdorman Odda pulled his son angrily away. “Eighteen shillings!” I called after them, then squatted again and ran the stone down the sword’s long edge.

  Women. Men fight for them, and that was another lesson to learn. As a child I thought men struggled for land or for mastery, but they fight for women just as much. Mildrith and I were unexpectedly content together, but it was clear that Odda the Younger hated me because I had married her, and I wondered if he would dare do anything about that hatred. Beocca once told me the tale of a prince from a faraway land who stole a king’s daughter and the king led his army to the prince’s land and thousands of great warriors died in the struggle to get her back. Thousands! And all for a woman. Indeed the argument that began this tale, the rivalry between King Osbert of Northumbria and Ælla, the man who wanted to be king, all began because Ælla stole Osbert’s wife. I have heard some women complain that they have no power and that men control the world, and so they do, but women still have the power to drive men to battle and to the grave beyond.

  I was thinking of these things as Alfred came from the tent. He had the look of beatific pleasure he usually wore when he had just said his prayers, but he was also walking stiffly, which probably meant the ficus was troubling him again, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable when we sat down to supper that night. The meal was an unspeakable gruel I would hesitate to serve to pigs, but there was bread and cheese enough so I did not starve. I did note that Alfred was distant with me, hardly acknowledging my presence, and I put that down to the fleet’s failure to achieve any real victory during that summer, yet he had still summoned me and I wondered why if all he intended to do was ignore me.

  Yet, the next morning he summoned me after prayers and we walked up and down outside the royal tent where the dragon banner flew in the autumn sun. “The fleet,” Alfred said, frowning, “can it prevent the Danes leaving the Poole?”

  “No, lord.”

  “No?” That was said sharply. “Why not?”

  “Because, lord,” I said, “we have twelve ships and they have over two hundred. We could kill a few of them, but in the end they’ll overwhelm us and you won’t have any fleet left and they’ll still have more than two hundred ships.”

  I think Alfred knew that, but he still did not like my answer. He grimaced, then walked in silence for a few more paces. “I am glad you married,” he said abruptly.

  “To a debt,” I said sharply.

  He did not like my tone, but allowed it. “The debt, Uhtred,” he said reprovingly, “is to the church, so you must welcome it. Besides, you’re young, you have time to pay. The Lord, remember, loves a cheerful giver.” That was one of his favorite sayings and if I heard it once I heard it a thousand times. He turned on his heel, then looked back. “I shall expect your presence at the negotiations,” he said, but did not explain why, nor wait for any response, but just walked on.

  He and Guthrum were talking. A canopy had been raised between Alfred’s camp and Werham’s western wall, and it was beneath that shelter that a truce was being hammered out. Alfred would have liked to assault Werham, but the approach was narrow, the wall was high and in very good repair, and the Danes were numerous. It would have been a very risky fight, and one that the Danes could expect to win, and so Alfred had abandoned the idea. As for the Danes, they were trapped. They had been relying on Halfdan coming to attack Alfred in the rear, but Halfdan was dead in Ireland, and Guthrum’s men were too many to be carried away on their ships, big as their fleet was, and if they tried to break out by land they would be forced to fight Alfred on the narrow strip of land between the two rivers, and that would cause a great slaughter. I remembered Ravn telling me how the Danes feared to lose too many men for they could not replace them quickly. Guthrum could stay where he was, of course, but then Alfred would besiege him and Alfred had already ordered that every barn, granary, and storehouse within raiding distance of the Poole was to be emptied. The Danes would starve in the coming winter.

  Which meant that both sides wanted peace, and Alfred and Guthrum had been discussing terms, and I arrived just as they were finishing the discussions. It was already too late in the year for the Danish fleet to risk a long journey around Wessex’s southern coast, and so Alfred had agreed that Guthrum could remain in Werham through the winter. He also agreed to supply them with food on condition that they made no raids, and he agreed to give them silver because he knew the Danes always wanted silver, and in return they promised that they would stay peaceably in Werham and leave peaceably in the spring when their fleet would go back to East Anglia and the rest of their army would march north through Wessex, guarded by our men, until they reached Mercia.

  No one, on either side, believed the promises, so they had to be secured, and for that each side demanded hostages, and the hostages had to be of rank, or else their lives would be security for nothing. A dozen Danish earls, none of whom I knew, were to be delivered to Alfred, and an equivalent number of English nobles given to Guthrum.

  Which was why I had been summoned. Which was why Alfred had been so distant with me, for he knew all along that I was to be one of the hostages. My use to him had lessened that year, because of the fleet’s impotence, but my rank still had bargaining power, and so I was among the chosen. I was Ealdorman Uhtred, and only useful because I was a noble, and I saw Odda the Younger smiling broadly as my name was accepted by the Danes.

  Guthrum and Alfred then swore oaths. Alfred insisted that the Danish leader make his oath with one hand on the relics that Alfred always carried in his baggage. There was a feather from the dove that Noah had released from the ark, a glove that had belonged to Saint Cedd, and, most sacred of all, a toe ring that had belonged to Mary Magdalene. The holy ring, Alfred called it, and a bemused Guthrum put his hand on the scrap of gold and swore he would keep his promises, then insisted that Alfred put a hand on the bone he hung in his hair and he made the King of Wessex swear on a dead Danish mother that the West Saxons would keep the treaty. Only when those oaths were made, sanctified by the gold of a saint and the bone of a mother, were the hostages exchanged, and as I walked across the space between the two sides Guthrum must have recognized me for he gave me a long, contemplative look, and then we were escorted, with ceremony, to Werham.

  Where Earl Ragnar, son of Ragnar, welcomed me.

  There was joy in that meeting. Ragnar and I embraced like brothers, and I thought of him as a brother, and he thumped my back, poured ale, and gave me news. Kjartan and Sven still lived and were still in Dunholm. Ragnar had confronted them in a formal meeting where both sides were forbidden to carry weapons, and Kjartan had sworn that he was innocent of the hall-burning and declared he knew nothing of Thyra. “The bastard lied,” Ragnar told me, “and I know he lied. And he knows he will die.”

  “But not yet?”

  “How can I take Dunholm?”

  Brida was there, sharing Ragnar’s bed, and she greeted me warmly, though not as hotly as Nihtgenga who leaped all over me and washed my face with his tongue. Brida was amused that I was going to be a father. “But it will be good for you,” she said.

  “Good for me? Why?”

  “Because you’ll be a proper man.”

  I thought I was that already, yet there was still one thing lacking, one thing I had never confessed to anyone, not to
Mildrith, not to Leofric, and not now to Ragnar or Brida. I had fought the Danes, I had seen ships burn and watched men drown, but I had never fought in a great shield wall. I had fought in small ones, I had fought ship’s crew against ship’s crew, but I had never stood on a wide battlefield and watched the enemy’s banners hide the sun, and known the fear that comes when hundreds or thousands of men are coming to the slaughter. I had been at Eoferwic and at Æsc’s Hill and I had seen the shield walls clash, but I had not been in the front rank. I had been in fights, but they had all been small and small fights end quickly. I had never endured the long bloodletting, the terrible fights when thirst and weariness weaken a man and the enemy, no matter how many you kill, keeps on coming. Only when I had done that, I thought, could I call myself a proper man.

  I missed Mildrith, and that surprised me. I also missed Leofric, though there was huge pleasure in Ragnar’s company, and the life of a hostage was not hard. We lived in Werham, received enough food, and watched the gray of winter shorten the days. One of the hostages was a cousin of Alfred’s, a priest called Wælla, who fretted and sometimes wept, but the rest of us were content enough. Hacca, who had once commanded Alfred’s fleet, was among the hostages, and he was the only one I knew well, but I spent my time with Ragnar and his men who accepted me as one of them and even tried to make me a Dane again. “I have a wife,” I told them.

  “So bring her!” Ragnar said. “We never have enough women.”

  But I was English now. I did not hate the Danes, indeed I preferred their company to the company of the other hostages, but I was English. That journey was done. Alfred had not changed my allegiance, but Leofric and Mildrith had, or else the three spinners had become bored with teasing me, though Bebbanburg still haunted me and I did not know how, if I was to keep my loyalty to Alfred, I would ever see that lovely place again.

  Ragnar accepted my choice. “But if there’s peace,” he said, “will you help me fight Kjartan?”

  “If?” I repeated the word.

  He shrugged. “Guthrum still wants Wessex. We all do.”

  “If there’s peace,” I promised, “I will come north.”

  Yet I doubted there would be peace. In the spring Guthrum would leave Wessex, the hostages would be freed, and then what? The Danish army still existed and Ubba yet lived, so the onslaught on Wessex must begin again, and Guthrum must have been thinking the same for he talked with all the hostages in an effort to discover Alfred’s strength. “It is a great strength,” I told him. “You may kill his army and another will spring up.” It was all nonsense, of course, but what else did he expect me to say?

  I doubt I convinced Guthrum, but Wælla, the priest who was Alfred’s cousin, put the fear of God into him. Guthrum spent hours talking with Wælla, and I often interpreted for him, and Guthrum was not asking about troops or ships, but about God. Who was the Christian God? What did he offer? He was fascinated by the tale of the crucifixion and I think, had we been given time enough, Wælla could even have persuaded Guthrum to convert. Wælla certainly thought so himself for he enjoined me to pray for such a conversion. “It’s close, Uhtred,” he told me excitedly, “and once he has been baptized then there will be peace!”

  Such are the dreams of priests. My dreams were of Mildrith and the child she carried. Ragnar dreamed of revenge. And Guthrum?

  Despite his fascination with Christianity, Guthrum dreamed of just one thing.

  He dreamed of war.

  PART THREE

  The Shield Wall

  TEN

  Alfred’s army withdrew from Werham. Some West Saxons stayed to watch Guthrum, but very few, for armies are expensive to maintain and, once gathered, they always seem to fall sick, so Alfred took advantage of the truce to send the men of the fyrds back to their farms while he and his household troops went to Scireburnan, which lay a half day’s march north of Werham and, happily for Alfred, was home to a bishop and a monastery. Beocca told me that Alfred spent that winter reading the ancient law codes from Kent, Mercia, and Wessex, and doubtless he was readying himself to compile his own laws, which he eventually did. I am certain he was happy that winter, criticizing his ancestors’ rules and dreaming of the perfect society where the church told us what not to do and the king punished us for doing it.

  Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsæta, commanded the few men who were left facing Werham’s ramparts, while Odda the Younger led a troop of horsemen who patrolled the shores of the Poole, but the two bands made only a small force and they could do little except keep an eye on the Danes, and why should they do more? There was a truce, Guthrum had sworn on the holy ring, and Wessex was at peace.

  The Yule feast was a thin affair in Werham, though the Danes did their best and at least there was plenty of ale so men got drunk, but my chief memory of that Yule is of Guthrum crying. The tears poured down his face as a harpist played a sad tune and a skald recited a poem about Guthrum’s mother. Her beauty, the skald said, was rivaled only by the stars, while her kindness was such that flowers sprang up in winter to pay her homage. “She was a rancid bitch,” Ragnar whispered to me, “and ugly as a bucket of shit.”

  “You knew her?”

  “Ravn knew her. He always said she had a voice that could cut down a tree.”

  Guthrum was living up to his name “the Unlucky.” He had come so close to destroying Wessex and it had only been Halfdan’s death that had cheated him of the prize, and that was not Guthrum’s fault, yet there was a simmering resentment among the trapped army. Men muttered that nothing could ever prosper under Guthrum’s leadership, and perhaps that distrust had made him gloomier than ever, or perhaps it was hunger.

  For the Danes were hungry. Alfred kept his word and sent food, but there was never quite enough, and I did not understand why the Danes did not eat their horses that were left to graze on the winter marshes between the fortress and the Poole. Those horses grew desperately thin, their pathetic grazing supplemented by what little hay the Danes had discovered in the town, and when that was gone they pulled the thatch from some of Werham’s houses, and that poor diet kept the horses alive until the first glimmerings of spring. I welcomed those new signs of the turning year: the song of a missel thrush, the dog violets showing in sheltered spots, the lambs’ tails on the hazel trees, and the first frogs croaking in the marsh. Spring was coming, and when the land was green Guthrum would leave and we hostages would be freed.

  We received little news other than what the Danes told us, but sometimes a message was delivered to one or other of the hostages, usually nailed to a willow tree outside the gate, and one such message was addressed to me. For the first time, I was grateful that Beocca had taught me to read for Father Willibald had written and told me I had a son. Mildrith had given birth before Yule and the boy was healthy and she was also healthy and the boy was called Uhtred. I wept when I read that. I had not expected to feel so much, but I did, and Ragnar asked why I was crying and I told him and he produced a barrel of ale and we gave ourselves a feast, or as much of a feast as we could make, and he gave me a tiny silver arm ring as a gift for the boy. I had a son. Uhtred.

  The next day I helped Ragnar relaunch Wind-Viper, which had been dragged ashore so her timbers could be caulked, and we stowed her bilges with the stones that served as ballast and rigged her mast and afterward killed a hare that we had trapped in the fields where the horses tried to graze, and Ragnar poured the hare’s blood on the Wind-Viper’s stem and called on Thor to send her fair winds and for Odin to send her great victories. We ate the hare that night and drank the last of the ale, and the next morning a dragon boat arrived, coming from the sea, and I was amazed that Alfred had not ordered our fleet to patrol the waters off the Poole’s mouth, but none of our boats was there, and so that single Danish ship came upriver and brought a message for Guthrum.

  Ragnar was vague about the ship. It came from East Anglia, he said, which turned out to be untrue, and merely brought news of that kingdom, which was equally untrue. It had come from the west, aro
und Cornwalum, from the lands of the Welsh, but I only learned that later and, at the time, I did not care, because Ragnar also told me that we should be leaving soon, very soon, and I only had thoughts for the son I had not seen. Uhtred Uhtredson.

  That night Guthrum gave the hostages a feast, a good feast, too, with food and ale that had been brought on the newly arrived dragon ship, and Guthrum praised us for being good guests and he gave each of us an arm ring, and promised we would all be free soon. “When?” I asked.

  “Soon!” His long face glistened in the firelight as he raised a horn of ale to me. “Soon! Now drink!”

  We all drank, and after the feast we hostages went to the nunnery’s hall where Guthrum insisted we slept. In the daytime we were free to roam wherever we wanted inside the Danish lines, and free to carry weapons if we chose, but at night he wanted all the hostages in one place so that his black-cloaked guards could keep an eye on us, and it was those guards who came for us in the night’s dark heart. They carried flaming torches and they kicked us awake, ordering us outside, and one of them kicked Serpent-Breath away when I reached for her. “Get outside,” he snarled, and when I reached for the sword again a spear stave cracked across my skull and two more spears jabbed my arse, and I had no choice but to stumble out the door into a gusting wind that was bringing a cold, spitting rain, and the wind tore at the flaming torches that lit the street where at least a hundred Danes waited, all armed, and I could see they had saddled and bridled their thin horses and my first thought was that these were the men who would escort us back to the West Saxon lines.

  Then Guthrum, cloaked in black, pushed through the helmeted men. No words were spoken. Guthrum, grim faced, the white bone in his hair, just nodded, and his black-cloaked men drew their swords and poor Wælla, Alfred’s cousin, was the first hostage to die. Guthrum winced slightly at the priest’s death, for I think he had liked Wælla, but by then I was turning, ready to fight the men behind me even though I had no weapon and knew that fight could only end with my death. A sword was already coming for me, held by a Dane in a leather jerkin that was studded with metal rivets, and he was grinning as he ran the blade toward my unprotected belly and he was still grinning as the throwing ax buried its blade between his eyes. I remember the thump of that blade striking home, the spurt of blood in the flamelight, the noise as the man fell onto the flint and shingle street, and all the while the frantic protests from the other hostages as they were murdered, but I lived. Ragnar had hurled the ax and now stood beside me, sword drawn. He was in his war gear, in polished chain mail, in high boots and a helmet that he had decorated with a pair of eagle wings, and in the raw light of the wind-fretted fires he looked like a god come down to Midgard.