The Last Kingdom Series Books 4-6: Sword Song, The Burning Land, Death of Kings. Bernard Cornwell

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       Four

      We had agreed at Wintanceaster that Æthelred would come downriver to Coccham, bringing with him the troops from Alfred’s household guard, his own warriors, and whatever men he could raise from his extensive lands in southern Mercia. Once he arrived we would jointly march on Lundene with the Berrocscire fyrd and my own household troops. Alfred had stressed the need for haste, and Æthelred had promised to be ready in two weeks.

      Yet a whole month passed and still Æthelred had not come. The year’s first nestlings were taking wing among trees that were still not in full leaf. The pear blossom was white, and wagtails flitted in and out of their nests under the thatched eaves of our house. I watched a cuckoo staring intently at those nests, planning when to leave her egg among the wagtail’s clutch. The cuckoo had not started calling yet, but it would soon, and that was the time by which Alfred wanted Lundene captured.

      I waited. I was bored, as were my household troops, who were ready for war and suffered peace. They numbered just fifty-six warriors. It was a small number, scarcely sufficient to crew a ship, but men cost money and I was hoarding my silver in those days. Five of those men were youngsters who had never faced the ultimate test of battle, which was to stand in the shield wall, and so, as we waited for Æthelred, I put those five men through day after day of hard training. Osferth, Alfred’s bastard, was one of them. ‘He’s no good,’ Finan said to me repeatedly.

      ‘Give him time,’ I said just as frequently.

      ‘Give him a Danish blade,’ Finan said viciously, ‘and pray it slits his monkish belly.’ He spat. ‘I thought the king wanted him back in Wintanceaster?’

      ‘He does.’

      ‘So why don’t you send him back? He’s no use to us.’

      ‘Alfred has too many other things on his mind,’ I said, ignoring Finan’s question, ‘and he won’t remember Osferth.’ That was not true. Alfred had a most methodical mind, and he would not have forgotten Osferth’s absence from Wintanceaster, nor my disobedience in not sending the youth back to his studies.

      ‘But why not send him back?’ Finan insisted.

      ‘Because I liked his uncle,’ I said, and that was true. I had loved Leofric and, for his sake, I would be kind to his nephew.

      ‘Or are you just trying to annoy the king, lord?’ Finan asked, then grinned and strode away without waiting for an answer. ‘Hook and pull, you bastard!’ he shouted at Osferth. ‘Hook and pull!’

      Osferth turned to look at Finan and was immediately struck on the head by an oak cudgel wielded by Clapa. If it had been an axe the blade would have split Osferth’s helmet and cut deep into his skull, but the cudgel just half stunned him, so he fell to his knees.

      ‘Get up, you weakling!’ Finan snarled. ‘Get up, hook and pull!’

      Osferth tried to get up. His pale face looked miserable under the battered helmet that I had given him. He managed to stand, but immediately wobbled and knelt again.

      ‘Give me that,’ Finan said, and snatched the axe out of Osferth’s feeble hands. ‘Now watch! It isn’t difficult to do! My wife could do this!’

      The five new men were facing five of my experienced warriors. The youngsters had been given axes, real weapons, and told to break the shield wall that opposed them. It was a small wall, just the five overlapping shields defended by wooden clubs, and Clapa grinned as Finan approached.

      ‘What you do,’ Finan was speaking to Osferth, ‘is hook the axe blade over the top of the enemy bastard’s shield. Is that so difficult? Hook it, pull the shield down, and let your neighbour kill the earsling behind it. We’ll do it slowly, Clapa, to show how it’s done, and stop grinning.’

      They made the hook and pull in ludicrously slow motion, the axe coming gently overhand to latch its blade behind Clapa’s shield, and Clapa then allowing Finan to pull the shield’s top down towards him. ‘There,’ Finan turned on Osferth when Clapa’s body had been exposed to a blow, ‘that’s how you break a shield wall! Now we’ll do it for real, Clapa.’

      Clapa grinned again, relishing a chance to clout Finan with the cudgel. Finan stepped back, licked his lips, then struck fast. He swung the axe just as he had demonstrated, but Clapa tilted the shield back to take the axe head on the wooden surface and, at the same time, rammed his cudgel under the shield in a savage thrust at Finan’s groin.

      It was always a pleasure to watch the Irishman fight. He was the quickest man with a blade that I ever saw, and I have seen many. I thought Clapa’s lunge would fold him in two and drive him to the grass in agony, but Finan sidestepped, seized the lower rim of the shield with his left hand and jerked it hard upwards to drive the top iron rim into Clapa’s face. Clapa staggered backwards, his nose already red with blood, and the axe was somehow dropped with the speed of a striking snake and its blade was hooked around Clapa’s ankle. Finan pulled, Clapa fell back and now it was the Irishman who grinned. ‘That isn’t hook and pull,’ he said to Osferth, ‘but it works just the same.’

      ‘Wouldn’t have worked if you’d been holding a shield,’ Clapa complained.

      ‘That thing in your face, Clapa?’ Finan said, ‘thing that flaps open and closed? That ugly thing you shovel food into? Keep it shut.’ He tossed the axe to Osferth who tried to snatch the handle out of the air. He missed and the axe thumped into a puddle.

      The spring had turned wet. Rain sheeted down, the river spread, there was mud everywhere. Boots and clothes rotted. What little grain was left in store sprouted and I sent my men hunting or fishing to provide us with food. The first calves were born, slithering bloodily into a wet world. Every day I expected Alfred to come and inspect Coccham’s progress, but in those drenched days he stayed in Wintanceaster. He did send a messenger, a pallid priest who brought a letter sewn into a greased lambskin pouch. ‘If you cannot read it, lord,’ he suggested tentatively as I slit the pouch open, ‘I can …’

      ‘I can read,’ I growled. I could too. It was not an achievement I was proud of, because only priests and monks really needed the skill, but Father Beocca had whipped letters into me when I was a boy, and the lessons had proved useful. Alfred had decreed that all his lords should be able to read, not just so they could stagger their way through the gospel books the king insisted on sending as presents, but so they could read his messages.

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