Sword of Kings Read online

  ‘Damn your oaths,’ Finan said mildly.

  ‘I agree. But remember, Æthelhelm has tried to kill me. So oath or no oath I owe him a death.’

  Finan nodded because that explanation made sense to him even if he did believe we were on a voyage to madness. ‘And his nephew? What of him?’

  ‘We’ll kill Ælfweard too.’

  ‘You swore an oath to kill him too?’ Finan asked.

  ‘No,’ I admitted, but then touched my hammer once more. ‘But I swear one now. I’ll kill that little earsling along with his uncle.’

  Finan grinned. ‘One ship’s crew, eh? Forty of us! Forty men to kill the King of Wessex and his most powerful ealdorman?’

  ‘Forty men,’ I said, ‘and the troops of Cent.’

  Finan laughed. ‘I sometimes think you’re moon-crazed, lord,’ he said, ‘but, God knows, you’ve not lost yet.’

  We spent the next two nights sheltering in East Anglian rivers. We saw no one, just a landscape of reeds. On the second night the wind freshened in the darkness and the sky, that had been clear all day, clouded over to hide the stars, while far off to the west I saw lightning flicker and heard Thor’s growl in the night. Spearhafoc, even though she was tied securely in a safe haven, shivered under the wind’s assault. Rain spattered on the deck, the wind gusted, and the rain fell harder. Few of us slept.

  The dawn brought low clouds, drenching rain, and a hard wind, but I judged it safe enough to turn the ship and let the wind carry us downriver. We half-hoisted the sail, and Spearhafoc leaped ahead like a wolfhound loosed from the leash. The rain drove from astern, heavy and slanting in the wind’s grip. The steering-oar bent and groaned and I called on Gerbruht, the big Frisian, to help me. Spearhafoc was defying the flooding tide, racing past mudbanks and reeds, then at last we were clear of the shoals at the river’s mouth and could turn southwards. The ship bent alarmingly to the wind and I released the larboard sheet and still she drove on, shattering water at the bows. This, I thought, was madness. Impatience had driven me to sea when any sensible seaman would have stayed in shelter. ‘Where are we going, lord?’ Gerbruht shouted.

  ‘Across the estuary of the Temes!’

  The wind rose. Thunder hammered to the west. This coast was shallow, shortening the waves that shattered against our hull and drenched the rain-sodden crew with spray. Men clung to the benches as they bailed water. They were praying. I was praying. They were praying to survive, while I was asking the gods to forgive my stupidity in thinking a ship could survive this wind’s anger. It was dark, the sun utterly hidden by the roiling clouds, and we saw no other ships. Sailors were letting the storm blow over, but we hammered on southwards across the wide mouth of the Temes.

  The estuary’s southern shore appeared as a sullen stretch of sand pounded by foam beyond which were dark woods on low hills. The thunder came closer. The sky above distant Lundene was black as night, sometimes split by a jagged stab of lightning. The rain teemed down, and I searched the shore for a landmark, any landmark that I might recognise. The steering-oar, taking all my and Gerbruht’s strength, quivered like a live thing.

  ‘There!’ I shouted at Gerbruht, pointing. I had seen the island ahead, an island of reeds and mud, and to its left was the wide, wind-whipped entrance to the Swalwan Creek. Spearhafoc pounded on, clawing her way towards the creek’s safety. ‘I had a ship called Middelniht once!’ I bellowed to Gerbruht.

  ‘Lord?’ he asked, puzzled.

  ‘She’d been stranded on that island,’ I shouted, ‘on Sceapig! And the Middelniht proved to be a good ship! A Frisian ship! It’s a good omen!’

  He grinned. Water was dripping from his beard. ‘I hope so, lord!’ He did not sound confident.

  ‘It’s a good omen, Gerbruht! Trust me, we’ll be in calmer water soon!’

  We plunged on, the ship’s hull shaking with every wave that pounded her, but at last we cleared the island’s western tip where marker withies were being bent flat by the gale, and once in the creek the seas calmed to a vicious chop and we dropped the sodden sail and our oars took us into the wide channel that ran between the Isle of Sceapig and the Centish mainland. I could see farmsteads on Sceapig, the smoke from their roof-holes being whipped eastwards on the wind. The channel narrowed. The wind and rain still beat down on us, but the water was sheltered here and the creek’s banks had tamed the ship-killing waves. We went slowly, the oars rising and falling, and I thought how the dragon-boats must have crept down this waterway bringing savage men to plunder the rich fields and towns of Cent, and how the villagers must have been terrified as the serpent-headed war boats appeared from the river mists. I have never forgotten Father Beocca, my childhood tutor, clasping his hands and praying nightly: ‘From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us.’ Now I, a northerner, was bringing swords, spears and shields to Cent.

  The priest who had brought me Eadgifu’s message said that though she had announced her pious intention of praying at Saint Bertha’s tomb in Contwaraburg, in truth she had taken refuge in a small town called Fæfresham where she had endowed a convent. ‘The queen will be safe there,’ the priest had told me.

  ‘Safe! Protected by nuns?’

  ‘And by God, lord,’ he had reproved me, ‘the queen is protected by God.’

  ‘But why didn’t she go to Contwaraburg?’ I had asked him. Contwaraburg was a considerable town, had a stout wall, and, I assumed, men to defend it.

  ‘Contwaraburg is inland, lord.’ The priest had meant that if Eadgifu was threatened by failure, if Æthelhelm discovered her and sent troops, then she wanted to be in a place where she could escape by sea. From where she could cross to Frankia, and Fæfresham was very close to a harbour on the Swalwan Creek. It was, I supposed, a prudent choice.

  We rowed west and I saw the masts of a half-dozen ships showing above the sodden thatch of a small village on the creek’s southern bank. The village, I knew, was called Ora and lay a short distance north of Fæfresham. I had sailed this coast with its wide marshes, tide-swamped mudbanks, and hidden creeks often enough, I had fought Danes on its shores and had buried good men in its inland pastures.

  ‘Into the harbour,’ I told Gerbruht and we turned Spearhafoc, and my weary crew rowed her into Ora’s shallow harbour. It was a bedraggled, poor excuse for a harbour with rotting wharves either side of a tidal creek. On the western bank, where the wharves showed signs of being in repair, there were four tubby merchant ships, big bellied and squat, whose normal duties were to carry food and fodder upriver to Lundene. The water, though sheltered from the gale, was choppy and white-flecked, slapping irritably against the pilings and against three more ships that were moored at the harbour’s southern end. Those ships were long, high-prowed, and sleek. Each had a cross mounted on the bows. Finan saw them and climbed onto the steering platform beside me. ‘Whose are those?’ he asked.

  ‘You tell me,’ I said, wondering whether they were ships that Eadgifu was keeping in case she had to flee for her life.

  ‘They’re fighting ships,’ Finan said dourly, ‘but whose?’

  ‘Saxon, for sure,’ I said. The crosses on the bows told me that.

  There were buildings on both banks of the harbour. Most of them were shacks, presumably storing fishermen’s gear or cargo that awaited shipment, but some of the buildings were larger and had smoke streaming eastwards from their roof-holes. One of those, the biggest, stood at the centre of the western wharves and had a barrel hanging as a sign above a wide thatched porch. It was a tavern, I assumed, and then the door beneath the porch opened and two men appeared and stood watching us. I knew then who had brought the three fighting ships into the harbour.

  Finan knew too and swore under his breath.

  Because the two men wore dull red cloaks, and only one man insisted that his warriors wore matching red cloaks. Æthelhelm the Elder had started the fashion, and his son, my enemy, had continued the tradition.

  So Æthelhelm’s men had reached this part of Cent before us. ‘What do we
do?’ Gerbruht asked.

  ‘What do you think we do?’ Finan snarled. ‘We kill the buggers.’

  Because when queens call for help, warriors go to war.

  Three

  We swung Spearhafoc against one of the western wharves. The two men still watched from the tavern as we secured her lines, and then as Gerbruht, Folcbald and I came ashore. Folcbald, like Gerbruht, was a Frisian and, also like Gerbruht, a huge man, strong as any two others.

  ‘You know what to say?’ I asked Gerbruht.

  ‘Of course, lord.’

  ‘Don’t call me lord.’

  ‘No, lord.’

  The rain was slashing into our faces as we walked towards the tavern. All three of us were wearing mail beneath sodden cloaks, but we had neither helmets nor swords, just rough woollen caps and the knives any seaman wears at his belt. I was limping, half supported by Gerbruht. The ground was mud, the rain pouring off the tavern’s thatch.

  ‘That’s enough! Stop there!’ The taller of the two red-cloaked men called as we neared the tavern door. We stopped obediently. The two men were standing under a porch and seemed amused that we were forced to wait in the pelting rain. ‘And what’s your business here?’ the taller man demanded.

  ‘We need shelter, lord,’ Gerbruht said.

  ‘I’m no lord. And ships pay for shelter here,’ the man said. He was tall, broad-faced, with a thick beard cut short and square. He wore mail beneath his red cloak, had an enamelled cross on his chest and a long-sword at his side. He looked confident and capable.

  ‘Of course, master,’ Gerbruht said humbly. ‘Do we pay you, master?’

  ‘Of course you pay me, I’m the town reeve. It’s three shillings.’ He held out his hand.

  Gerbruht was not my quickest thinker and he just gaped, which was the right response to the outrageous demand. ‘Three shillings!’ I said. ‘We only pay a shilling in Lundene!’

  The man smiled unpleasantly. ‘Three shillings, grandpa. Or do you want my men to search your miserable boat and take what we want?’

  ‘Of course not, master,’ Gerbruht found his voice. ‘Pay him,’ he ordered me.

  I took the coins from a pouch and held them towards the man. ‘Bring it to me, you old fool,’ the man demanded.

  ‘Yes, master,’ I said and limped through a puddle.

  ‘And who are you?’ he demanded, scooping the silver from my palm.

  ‘His father,’ I said, nodding back towards Gerbruht.

  ‘We’re pilgrims from Frisia, master,’ Gerbruht explained, ‘and my father seeks the blessing of Saint Gregory’s slippers at Contwaraburg.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. I had hidden my hammer amulet beneath my mail, but both my companions were Christians and wore crosses at their necks. The wind was tearing at the tavern’s thatch and swinging the barrel sign dangerously. The rain was unrelenting.

  ‘God damn Frisian foreigners,’ the tall man said suspiciously. ‘And pilgrims? Since when do pilgrims wear mail?’

  ‘The warmest clothes we have, master,’ Gerbruht said.

  ‘And there are Danish ships at sea,’ I added.

  The man sneered. ‘You’re too old to fight anyone, grandpa, let alone take on some Danish raider!’ He looked back to Gerbruht. ‘You’re looking for holy slippers?’ he asked mockingly.

  ‘A touch of Saint Gregory’s slippers cures the sick, master,’ Gerbruht said, ‘and my father suffers ague in his feet.’

  ‘You’ve brought a lot of pilgrims to cure one old man’s feet!’ the man said suspiciously, nodding towards Spearhafoc.

  ‘They’re mostly slaves, master,’ Gerbruht said, ‘and some of them we’ll sell in Lundene.’

  The man still stared at Spearhafoc, but my crew was either slumped on the benches or huddling under the steering platform, and in the day’s dull light and because of the sheeting rain he could not tell whether they were slaves or not. ‘You’re slave-traders?’

  ‘We are,’ I said.

  ‘Then there’s customs duty to pay! How many slaves?’

  ‘Thirty, master,’ I said.

  He paused. I could see he was wondering how much he dared ask. ‘Fifteen shillings,’ he finally said, thrusting out a hand. This time I just gaped at him, and he put a hand on his sword hilt. ‘Fifteen shillings,’ he said slowly, as if he suspected a Frisian could not understand him, ‘or we confiscate your cargo.’

  ‘Yes, master,’ I said, and carefully counted fifteen silver shillings and dropped them into his palm.

  He grinned, happy to have fooled foreigners. ‘Got any juicy women in that ship?’

  ‘We sold the last three at Dumnoc, master,’ I said.

  ‘Pity,’ he said.

  His companion chuckled. ‘Wait a few days and we might have a couple of young boys to sell you.’

  ‘How young?’

  ‘Infants.’

  ‘It’s none of your business!’ The first man interrupted, plainly angered that his companion had mentioned the boys.

  ‘We pay well for small boys,’ I said. ‘They can be whipped and trained. A plump docile boy can fetch a good price!’ I took a gold coin from my purse and tossed it up and down a couple of times. I was doing my best to imitate Gerbruht’s Frisian accent and was evidently successful because neither man seemed to suspect anything. ‘Young boys,’ I said, ‘sell almost as well as young women.’

  ‘The boys might or might not be for sale,’ the first man said grudgingly, ‘and if you do buy them you’ll have to sell them abroad. Can’t be sold here.’ He was eyeing the gold coin that I slipped back into the pouch, making sure it clinked against the other coins.

  ‘Your name, master?’ I asked respectfully.

  ‘Wighelm.’

  ‘I am Liudulf,’ I said, using a common Frisian name. ‘And we seek shelter, nothing more.’

  ‘How long are you staying, old man?’

  ‘How far to Contwaraburg?’ I asked.

  ‘Ten miles,’ he said. ‘A man can walk there in a morning, but it might take you a week. How do you plan to get there? Crawl?’ He and his companion laughed.

  ‘I would stay long enough to reach Contwaraburg and then return,’ I said.

  ‘And we crave shelter, master,’ Gerbruht added from behind me.

  ‘Use one of the cottages over there,’ Wighelm said, nodding towards the further bank of the small harbour, ‘but make sure your damned slaves stay shackled.’

  ‘Of course, master,’ I said, ‘and thank you, master. God will bless your kindness.’

  Wighelm sneered at that, then he and his companion stepped back into the tavern. I had a glimpse of men at tables, then the door was slammed and I heard the bar drop into its brackets.

  ‘Was he the town reeve?’ Folcbald asked as we walked back to the ship.

  It was not a foolish question. I knew Æthelhelm had land all across southern Britain, and he probably did own parts of Cent, but it was most unlikely that Eadgifu would seek refuge anywhere near one of those estates. ‘He’s a lying bastard is what he is,’ I said, ‘and he owes me eighteen shillings.’

  I assumed Wighelm or one of his men was watching from the tavern as we rowed Spearhafoc across the creek and moored against a half-rotted wharf. I made most of my crew shuffle as they left the ship, pretending to be shackled. They grinned at the deception, but the rain was so hard and the day so dark that I doubted anyone would notice the pretence. Most of the crew had to use a store hut for their shelter because there was no room in the small cottage, where a driftwood fire blazed furiously. The cottager, a big man called Kalf, was a fisherman. He and his wife watched sullenly as a dozen of us filled his room. ‘You were mad to be at sea in this weather,’ he finally said in broken English.

  ‘The gods preserved us,’ I answered in Danish.

  His face brightened. ‘You’re Danes!’

  ‘Danes, Saxons, Irish, Frisians, Norsemen, and everything in between.’ I put two shillings on a barrel that was used as their table. I was not surprised to find Danes here, t
hey had invaded this part of Cent years before and many had stayed, had married Centish women, and adopted Christianity. ‘One of those,’ I said, nodding at the silver shillings, ‘is for sheltering us. The other is for opening your mouth.’

  ‘My mouth?’ he was puzzled.

  ‘To tell me what’s happening here,’ I said as I took Serpent-Breath and my helmet from the big leather bag.

  ‘Happening?’ Kalf asked nervously, watching as I buckled the big sword at my waist.

  ‘In the town,’ I said, nodding southwards. Ora and its small harbour lay a short walk from Fæfresham itself, which was built on the higher ground inland. ‘And those men in red cloaks,’ I went on, ‘how many are they?’

  ‘Three crews.’

  ‘Ninety men?’

  ‘About that, lord.’ Kalf had heard Berg address me as ‘lord’.

  ‘Three crews,’ I repeated. ‘How many are here?’

  ‘There are twenty-eight men in the tavern, lord,’ Kalf’s wife answered confidently and, when I looked enquiringly at her, she nodded. ‘I had to cook for the bastards, lord. There are twenty-eight.’

  Twenty-eight men to guard the ships. Our story of being Frisian slave-traders must have convinced Wighelm or else he would surely have tried to stop us landing. Or possibly, knowing his small force could not fight my much larger crew, he was being cautious, first by insisting we landed on the creek’s far side from the tavern, and then by sending a messenger south to Fæfresham. ‘So the rest of the crews are in Fæfresham?’ I asked Kalf.

  ‘We don’t know, lord.’

  ‘So tell me what you do know.’

  Two weeks before, he said, at the last full moon, a ship had come from Lundene carrying a group of women, a small boy, two babies, and a half-dozen men. They had gone to Fæfresham, he knew, and the women and children had vanished into the convent. Four of the men had stayed in the town, the other two had purchased horses and ridden away. Then, just three days ago, the three ships with their red-cloaked crews had arrived in the harbour, and most of the newcomers had gone south to the town. ‘They don’t tell us what they’re doing here, lord.’