The Flame Bearer by Bernard Cornwell
‘And who’s Ælswyth?’ Swithun asked, still gazing at the hooded figure. He, like every man on the waterfront, was transfixed by her.
‘Where are you from?’ the man demanded.
‘Northumbria.’
‘That’s Lord Æthelhelm’s youngest daughter. And you northern rats had better get used to her.’
‘I could get used to that,’ Swithun said reverently.
‘Because she’s going to live in your stinking country, poor lass.’
And the man escorting Ælswyth was Waldhere, my cousin’s war-leader.
And my cousin lacked a wife.
Æthelhelm had planned his exquisite revenge. He was going to Bebbanburg.
Eight
We slept on a pile of filthy straw in an empty stall of the Goose’s stables, sharing the stinking space with six other men. A sliver of hacksilver bought the four of us a breakfast of rock-hard bread, sour cheese, and watery ale. The noise of thunder made me look at the sky, but though the wind still blew hard and the clouds were grey and low, there was no rain and no sign of a storm. Then I realised the thunder was the sound of empty barrels being rolled along the street beyond the tavern yard. I went to the gate and saw men pushing half a dozen vast tuns inland. Another man led a string of pack mules laden with panniers heaped with salt.
I called Swithun to me and gave him silver. ‘Spend the day here,’ I told him, meaning the Goose. ‘Don’t get in a fight. Don’t get drunk. Don’t boast. And keep your ears open.’
‘Yes, lo—’ he managed to stop before saying lord. He took great delight in calling me grandpa when any stranger was in earshot, but when we were alone he found it almost impossible not to say ‘lord’. We were alone now, but there was a score of men in the yard, some splashing water on their faces from a wooden horse trough, others using a latrine along the eastern wall. The latrine was just a deep ditch, topped with a wooden bench, and supposedly flushed by a stream. It stank.
‘Just let the girls talk, and listen to them!’
‘I will, lo— and,’ he hesitated, then looked down at the silver shillings. He seemed surprised by my generosity. ‘Is it all right if I?’ he hesitated again.
‘They’re not going to talk to you unless you pay them,’ I said, ‘and you’re not paying them for words, are you?’
‘No, lor—’
‘Then do your duty.’ I doubted any of the girls would be awake yet, but Swithun headed eagerly into the tavern’s great room.
Oswi looked aggrieved. ‘I could have done—’
‘This afternoon,’ I interrupted him, ‘it will be your turn this afternoon. Swithun will be worn out by then. Now let’s get out of this stench.’
I was curious to discover where the barrels were going, but it took hardly a moment to find the answer because, before we had gone thirty paces from the back gate of the tavern yard, the squealing began. A gang of men was butchering pigs in a wide street that led east into the countryside. Two men wielded axes, the rest had knives and saws. The animals screamed, knowing their fate, the axes swung, and jets of blood spattered on house walls and puddled in the street’s ruts. Dogs yapped at the edge of the slaughter, ravens lodged on the roofs, and women used jugs, bowls, and pails as they tried to collect the fresh blood to mix with oats. The butchers were crudely cutting away shoulders, bellies, loins, and hams that were tossed to men packing the great barrels with layers of meat and salt. The trotters were packed as well, along with the kidneys, but much of the animals was being tossed aside. Heads, guts, hearts, and lungs were being discarded, and the dogs fought over the offal, and women snatched up scraps as yet more screaming beasts were driven forward and had their skulls split open by the blunt blades. The waste of heads and hearts was proof that these men were in a hurry.
‘It ain’t right,’ Cerdic muttered.
‘Wasting the heads like that?’ I asked.
‘Pigs are clever, lord …’ he flinched, ‘sorry. My father kept pigs. He always said they were clever. Pigs know! You have to surprise a pig when you kill him. It’s only fair.’
‘They’re only pigs!’ Oswi said scornfully.
‘It ain’t right. They know what’s happening.’
I let them argue. I was remembering that Father Cuthwulf, who spied for Æthelflaed, had said that the fleet would put to sea after the feast of Saint Eanswida, and we were still weeks away from that day. But just as I spread tales to mislead my enemies, so might Æthelhelm. If this frantic butchery meant anything it surely meant that the fleet would sail much sooner than Saint Eanswida’s day. Maybe within the next few days? Maybe even today! Why else would Ælswyth be here? Her father would not expect the girl to wait for weeks in this bleak East Anglian town, nor would he want his troops idle for so long. ‘We’re going to the harbour,’ I told Oswi and Cerdic.
I had found a rough stick in the tavern’s piles of firewood and I leaned on it as I limped past the Goose. I kept my back bent. It made for slow progress, of course, but I hoped that no one seeing a shabby old man limping broken-backed would suspect it was Uhtred the Warlord. I let Cerdic support one elbow as we crossed the uneven gap between land and wharf. The stick thumped on the planks, and when Cerdic released me I staggered slightly. The wind was stronger here, still whistling in the moored ships’ rigging and whipping the river into hustling white caps.
The one long wharf ran along the river’s bank, and the two piers jutted from it, the rickety structures so crowded with ships that most were moored side by side, sometimes three ships were lashed together, the outer two depending on the inside craft to hold them safe to the pier or wharf. The Ælfswon lay halfway down the long wharf, manned by a dozen men who I suspected had slept aboard. There was no more room in the town. Every tavern was crowded, and if Æthelhelm, or whoever commanded these troops, did not move them soon there would be trouble. Idle men make mischief, especially idle men supplied with ale, whores, and weapons.
Most of the ships, I reckoned, were trading craft. They had wider bellies and lower prows than the fighting ships. A few looked abandoned. One ship was half full of water, her timbers blackened by neglect. She had no sail bent on her yard, while one severed shroud lifted in the brisk wind, but she still had another ship moored outboard of her. Other ships were laden with barrels and crates, the cargo carefully stowed amidships, and all those ships had three or four men aboard. I counted fourteen such trading boats that looked ready for sea. Then there were the fighting ships, which were leaner, longer, and more menacing. Most, like the Ælfswon, had a cross on their prow. There were eight of them, including the Ælfswon, and all eight had men aboard, and most had clean waterlines. I stopped beside one and peered down into the scummy water and saw how the ship had recently been beached so that the weed could be scraped from her hull. A clean hull adds speed to a ship, and speed wins battles at sea. ‘What are you looking at, cripple?’ a man demanded.
‘God bless you,’ I called, ‘God bless you.’
‘Piss off and die,’ the man growled, then made the sign of the cross. A cripple meant bad luck. No sailor would willingly go to sea with a cripple aboard, and even a cripple close to a ship might bring a malevolent spirit.
I obeyed the first of his commands by limping further up the pier. I had counted sixteen pairs of benches on the ship, which meant thirty-two oarsmen. The Ælfswon and the two ships moored fore and aft of her were even bigger. Say fifty men aboard each and that meant Æthelhelm’s eight fighting ships could carry four hundred warriors, with still more on the cargo vessels. He had an army.
And I had no doubt where that army was going. To Bebbanburg. My cousin was a widower, so Æthelhelm would provide him with a bride. My cousin was being starved into surrender, so Æthelhelm would take him food. My cousin had men enough to defend Bebbanburg’s ramparts, but not enough to retake his lands, and so Æthelhelm would bring him warriors.
And what did Æthelhelm receive in return? He became master of northern Northumbria, and celebrated as the man who drove the Scots from S
‘Good morrow,’ a friendly voice shouted, and I saw Renwald taking a piss off the pier’s edge, ‘still nasty weather!’ He and his crew had plainly slept aboard the Rensnægl that lay outboard of the Frisian trading ship. They had rigged a sailcloth awning across the Rensnægl’s stern to give them shelter from the wind.
‘You’ll lay up for a couple of days?’ I asked.
‘You’re limping!’ he said, frowning.
‘Just an ache in the hip.’
He looked up at the low clouds. ‘We’ll lay up till this passes. There’ll be some rain and wind, and then we’ll leave. Did you find your family?’
‘I’m not sure they’re here any longer.’
‘I pray they are,’ he said generously.
‘If I have to go back north,’ I asked, ‘will you take us? I’ll pay you.’
He chuckled at that. ‘I’m for Lundene! But you’ll find plenty of ships going north!’ He looked up at the clouds again. ‘This will probably clear today, so we’ll leave tomorrow. Give the weather time to settle, eh? Then sail on tomorrow’s ebb.’
‘I’ll pay you well,’ I said. I was beginning to fear I needed to return to the Humbre sooner than I had expected, and I had learned to trust Renwald.
He did not respond to my offer because he was gazing fixedly seawards. ‘Good God almighty,’ he said, and I turned to see a ship coming into the river. ‘Poor bastard must have had a rough night of it,’ Renwald added, making the sign of the cross.
The approaching ship looked dark under the dark sky. She was a fighting ship, long and low, with her sail brailed tight to her yard and banks of oars pulling her upstream. She looked ragged, with torn scraps of sailcloth and broken rigging flying loose in the wind. Her prow reared high and was capped by a cross from which streamed a long black pennant. She turned towards the piers, the small waves fretting white at her bows and her tired oarsmen fighting against wind, current, and tide.
Her steersman pointed the dark ship towards the Ælfswon, and I waited for the Ælfswon’s crew to shout at her to veer off, but to my surprise they were waiting with mooring lines. The lines were thrown, the oars shipped, and the newcomer was hauled in to settle beside the longer, white-hulled vessel. ‘He is privileged,’ Renwald said enviously, then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to Lundene! But you’ll find a ship going north.’
‘I hope so,’ I responded, then walked back down the pier to see who or what the dark ship had brought.
‘May God bless you all!’ a shrill voice called loud enough to be heard above the wind’s howling and the crying of the gulls, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the other one, my blessing on you!’
Ieremias had come to Dumnoc.
Ieremias, the mad bishop who was no bishop at all and who might not even have been mad, was my tenant, paying rent to the lord of Dunholm. This was the man who had brought me fifteen silver shillings and then pissed on them. His real name was Dagfinnr Gundarson, but Jarl Dagfinnr the Dane had turned himself into Bishop Ieremias of Gyruum, and today, as his dirty-looking ship was berthed alongside the pristine Ælfswon, he appeared in the bright robes of a bishop and carrying a crozier; a bishop’s staff that was nothing more than a shepherd’s crook, though Ieremias’s crozier had a hook of silver. ‘God bring you health!’ he shouted, his long white hair lifting to the wind, ‘and God bring you healthy sons and fertile women! God bring you good crops and plump fruit! May God multiply your flocks and increase your herds!’ He lifted his arms to the dull heavens, ‘I pray this, God! I pray that Thou bless these people and by Thy great mercy piss mightily upon all their enemies!’
It began to rain.
I was surprised the rain had held off for so long, but suddenly it began, hard spitting at first, but growing quickly into a vicious downpour. Ieremias cackled, then he must have seen me. He could not recognise me, of course, I wore the hood of my cloak over my head and he was looking through drenching rain from the wharf to where we stood on a pier, but he saw a bent-backed cripple, and immediately pointed his crozier towards me. ‘Heal him, God! Shower Thy mercy upon that broken man!’ His voice pierced through the sound of the rainstorm. ‘Straighten him, Lord! Lift Your curse from him! I ask this in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the other one!’
‘Guds Moder,’ I muttered.
‘Lord?’ Cerdic asked.
‘That’s the name of his ship,’ I said, ‘God’s mother, and don’t call me lord.’
‘Sorry, lord.’
I had been told that the Guds Moder was a shambles, a half-wrecked ship with gaping seams and frayed rigging that would sink if it so much as struck a ripple, but she would never have survived this weather if she had not been in good repair. Ieremias just wanted her to look dirty and uncared for. Loose lines blew ragged from the mast, but I could see that beneath that raggedness was a taut and seaworthy ship, a fighting ship. Ieremias had turned away from me and now crossed over the Ælfswon’s deck followed by four of his men, all in mail and wearing helmets. He kept praying or preaching as he crossed the wharf, though I could no longer hear him. We followed.
The rain was malevolent, streaming off the town’s thatched roofs and flooding the alleys. Ieremias did not care. He preached as he walked. Two of Æthelhelm’s warriors had met him, and now led him past the Goose, where he insisted on stopping to shout through the open door. ‘Whores and wine-guzzlers,’ he bellowed, ‘the scriptures forbid both! Repent you miserable sons of Beelzebub! You bibbers of ale and tuppers of tarts! Repent!’ Men stared in astonishment from the Goose’s door at the gaunt, rain-drenched bishop in his embroidered vestments who harangued them. ‘Who hath woe?’ he demanded. ‘Who hath babbling? They that guzzle wine! That is the word of God, you bastard bibbling babblers! Thine eyes shall behold strange women! The scriptures say that! Believe me! I have beheld strange women, but by the grace of God I am redeemed! I am sanctified! I am saved from strange women!’
‘Bastard’s mad,’ Cerdic said.
I was not so sure. Somehow the mad bastard had outlived Brida’s rule in Northumbria. She had hated Christians with a malevolence, but Ieremias had survived her slaughterous campaign against his god. He possessed a fort at Gyruum, but he had never needed it. Perhaps, I thought, Brida had recognised someone as moon-touched as herself, or else she had smelt that Ieremias’s religion was a joke.
One of Æthelhelm’s guards plucked at Ieremias’s elbow, plainly wanting to persuade the ranting prophet out of the rain and into a fire-warmed hall, and Ieremias let himself be led on. We followed, passing the street where the pig blood was being washed from walls by rain, then to the edge of the town where a substantial hall had been built on a slight rise of ground. It was a fine hall, steep roofed and thickly thatched, and big enough, I estimated, to feast two hundred men. Beside it were stables, storehouses, and a barn, the buildings surrounding a courtyard where two spearmen wearing Æthelhelm’s dark red cloaks were guarding the hall’s door. Ieremias was led inside. I doubted we could follow, nor did I want to risk an attempt to enter the hall in case I was recognised, but a group of beggars was huddled beneath a thatched shelter at one end of the barn, and I joined them there. I sent Oswi back to the Goose, but kept Cerdic with me.
We waited. We sat hunched, crammed with legless, blind, gibbering beggars. One of the women, her face a mess of weeping ulcers, crawled towards the hall door and was kicked back by one of the guards. ‘You were told to wait over there,’ the spearman snarled, ‘and be grateful his lordship allows it!’
His lordship? Was Æthelhelm here? If so, I tho
It was past midday when the rain finally ended. The wind still gusted, but it had lost much of its spite. Two hounds came from the hall, wandered around in the mud and puddles for a while, then lifted their legs against a post. A girl brought the two guards at the hall door pots of ale, then stood chatting and laughing with them. I could just see over the rain-darkened thatch of the town to where a fishing boat was heading for sea, her sail bellying taut in the chill wind. A watery sun glinted on the far waves. The weather was improving, and that meant Æthelhelm’s fleet could go to sea.
‘Onto your knees, you earslings,’ a guard suddenly shouted at us. ‘If you’ve got knees, that is. If you haven’t, just grovel best you can! And make a line!’
A large group was coming from the hall. There were helmeted guards in their red cloaks, two priests, and then I saw Æthelhelm, bluff and genial, his arm around his daughter, who tried to lift the hem of her pale dress out of the mud. She still looked miserable, though her misery could not mask her delicate beauty. She was pale, her face flawless, and her slender frame making her appear fragile despite her height. Waldhere, my cousin’s warrior, was on her other side. His broad shoulders were draped by a black cloak beneath which he wore mail. He had no helmet. Behind him was Æthelhelm’s brute, Hrothard, grinning at something the ealdorman had just said, and last of all came Ieremias, resplendent in his damp bishop’s robes. I took a handful of mud and smeared it on my face, then made sure the hood was covering my eyes.
‘Charity is our duty,’ I heard Æthelhelm say as he approached us, ‘if we want God’s favour then in turn we must favour his most unfortunate children. When you are mistress of the north, my dear, you must be charitable.’
‘I will, father,’ Ælswyth answered dully.