Sword Song (28 page)

“He does. Especially priests.”

“Then why does he feed us so well?”

“To show that he despises us,” I said.

“Not to poison us?” Willibald asked, still worried.

“Eat,” I said, “enjoy.” I doubted the Northmen would poison us. They might want us dead, but not before they had humiliated us, yet even so I set a careful guard on the paths leading to the hall. I half feared that Sigefrid’s chosen humiliation would be to burn the hall at dead of night, with us sleeping inside. I had watched a hall-burning once, and it is a terrible thing. Warriors wait outside to drive the panicked occupants back into the inferno of falling, burning thatch in which folk scream before they die. Next morning, after the hall-burning, the victims had been small as little children, their corpses shrunken and blackened, their hands curled, and their burned lips drawn back from their teeth in a terrible and eternal scream of pain.

But no one tried to kill us in that short summer night. I stood guard for a time, listening to the owls, then watching as the sun rose through the thick tangle of trees. Some time later I heard a horn blowing. It made a mournful wail that was repeated three times, then sounded three times again, and I knew Sigefrid must be summoning his men. He would send for us soon, I thought, and I dressed carefully. I chose to wear my best mail, and my fine war helmet and, though the day promised to be warm, my black cloak with its lightning bolt streaking down the long back. I pulled on my boots and strapped on my swords. Steapa also wore mail, though his armor was dirty and tarnished, while his boots were scuffed and his scabbard-covering torn, yet somehow he looked much more fearsome than I did. Father Willibald was dressed in his black gown and carried a small bag, which contained a gospel book and the sacraments. “You will translate for me, won’t you?” he asked earnestly.

“Why didn’t Alfred send a priest who spoke Danish?” I asked.

“I do speak some!” Willibald said, “but not as much as I’d like. No, the king sent me because he thought I might be a comfort to the Lady Æthelflaed.”

“Make sure you are,” I said, then turned because Cerdic had come running down the track that led through the trees from the south.

“They’re coming, lord,” he said.

“How many?”

“Six, lord. Six horsemen.”

The six men rode into the clearing about the hall. They stopped and looked around them. Their helmet masks restricted their vision, forcing them to move their heads extravagantly in order to see our picketed horses. They were counting heads, making sure I had not sent a scouting party to explore the country. Finally, satisfied that no such party existed, their leader deigned to look at me. I thought he was the same man who had greeted us on the hilltop the previous day. “You alone must come,” he said, pointing at me.

“Three of us are coming,” I said.

“You alone,” he insisted.

“Then we leave for Lundene now,” I said, and turned. “Pack up! Saddles! Hurry! We’re going!”

The man made no fight of it. “Three, then,” he said carelessly, “but you do not ride to Earl Sigefrid’s presence. You walk.”

I made no fight of that. I knew it was part of Sigefrid’s purpose to humiliate us, and how better than to make us walk to his camp? Lords rode while common men walked, but Steapa, Father Willibald, and I meekly walked behind the six horsemen as they followed a track through the trees and out onto a wide grassy down that overlooked the sun-shimmering Temes. The down was covered by crude shelters, places built by the new crews who had come to support Sigefrid in anticipation of the treasure he would soon possess and distribute.

I was sweating fiercely by the time we climbed the slope to Sigefrid’s encampment. I could see Caninga now, and the eastern part of the creek, both places I knew intimately from their seaward side, but which I had never seen from this eagle’s height. I could see, too, that there were now many more ships crammed into the drying Hothlege. The Vikings roamed the world in search of a weak spot into which they could pour with ax, sword, and spear, and Æthelflaed’s capture had revealed just such an opportunity and so the Northmen gathered.

Hundreds of men waited inside the gate. They made a passageway
toward the fort’s great hall and the three of us had to walk between those twin grim lines of bearded, armed men toward two big farm wagons that had been placed together to make a long platform. In the center of that makeshift stage was a chair in which Sigefrid slouched. He was in his black bear robe despite the heat. His brother Erik stood to one side of the big chair while Haesten, grinning slyly, stood on the other. A row of helmeted guards was behind the trio, while in front of them, hanging from the wagons’ beds, were banners of ravens, eagles, and wolves. On the ground in front of Sigefrid were the standards captured from Æthelred’s fleet. The Lord of Mercia’s own great banner of a prancing horse was there, and beside it were flags showing crosses and saints. The standards were soiled, and I guessed the Danes had taken it in turns to piss on the captured flags. There was no sign of Æthelflaed. I had half expected that we should see her paraded in public, but she must have been under guard in one of the dozen buildings on the hilltop.

“Alfred has sent his puppies to yelp at us!” Sigefrid announced as we reached the fouled banners.

I took off my helmet. “Alfred sends you greetings,” I said. I had half expected to be met by Sigefrid inside his hall, then realized he had wanted to greet me in the open air so that as many of his followers as possible could see my humiliation.

“You whine like a puppy,” Sigefrid said.

“And he wishes you joy of the Lady Æthelflaed’s company,” I went on.

He scowled in puzzlement. His broad face looked fatter, indeed his body looked fatter because the wound Osferth had given him had taken away the use of his legs but not his appetite, and so he sat, a cripple, slumped and gross, staring indignantly at me. “Joy of her, puppy?” he growled. “What are you yapping about?”

“The King of Wessex,” I said loudly, letting the audience hear me, “has other daughters! There is the lovely Æthelgifu, and her sister, Æfthryth, so what need does he have of Æthelflaed? And what use are daughters anyway? He is a king and he has sons, Edward and
Æthelweard, and sons are a man’s glory, while daughters are his burden. So he wishes you joy of her, and sent me to bid her farewell.”

“The puppy tries to amuse us,” Sigefrid said scornfully. He did not believe me, of course, but I hoped I had sown a small seed of doubt, just enough to justify the low ransom I was going to offer. I knew, and Sigefrid knew, that the final price would be huge, but maybe, if I repeated it often enough, I could persuade him that Alfred did not care deeply about Æthelflaed. “Perhaps I shall take her for my lover?” Sigefrid suggested.

I noticed Erik, beside his brother, shifting uncomfortably.

“She would be fortunate in that,” I said carelessly.

“You lie, puppy,” Sigefrid said, but there was just the smallest note of uncertainty in his voice. “But the Saxon bitch is pregnant. Perhaps her father will buy her child?”

“If it’s a boy,” I said dubiously, “perhaps.”

“Then you must make an offer,” Sigefrid said.

“Alfred might pay a small sum for a grandchild,” I began.

“Not to me,” Sigefrid interrupted me. “You must persuade Weland of your good faith.”

“Wayland?” I asked, thinking he meant the blacksmith to the gods.

“Weland the Giant,” Sigefrid said and, smiling, nodded past me. “He’s a Dane,” Sigefrid went on, “and no man has ever out-wrestled Weland.”

I turned and facing me was the biggest man I have ever seen. A huge man. A warrior, doubtless, though he wore neither weapons nor mail. He wore leather trews and boots, but above the waist he was naked to reveal muscles like twisted cord under a skin that had been scored and colored with ink so that his wide chest and massive arms writhed with black dragons. His forearms were thick with rings larger than any I had seen, for no normal ring would have fitted Weland. His beard, black as the dragons on his body, was tied with small amulets, while his skull was bald. His face was malevolent, scarred, brutish, though he smiled when I caught his eye.

“You must persuade Weland,” Sigefrid said, “that you do not lie, puppy, or else I will not talk with you.”

I had expected something of this sort. In Alfred’s mind we would have come to Beamfleot, conducted a civilized discussion, and reached a moderate compromise that I would duly report back to him, but I was more used to the Northmen. They needed amusement. If I were to negotiate then I must first show my strength. I must needs prove myself, but as I stared at Weland I knew I would fail. He was a head taller than me, and I was a head taller than most men, but the same instinct that had warned me of an ordeal had also persuaded me to bring Steapa.

Who smiled his death’s-head smile. He had not understood anything I had said to Sigefrid, or Sigefrid to me, but he understood Weland’s stance. “He has to be beaten?” he asked me.

“Let me do it,” I said.

“Not while I live,” Steapa answered. He unbuckled his sword belt and gave the weapons to Father Willibald, then hauled the heavy mail coat over his head. The watching men, anticipating the fight, gave a raucous cheer.

“You had best hope your man wins, puppy,” Sigefrid said behind me.

“He will,” I said, with a confidence I did not feel.

“In the spring, puppy,” Sigefrid growled, “you stopped me from crucifying a priest. I am still curious, so if your man loses I shall crucify that piece of priestly piss beside you.”

“What’s he saying?” Willibald had seen the malevolent glance Sigefrid had shot in his direction and, unsurprisingly, sounded nervous.

“He says you’re not to use your Christian magic to influence the fight,” I lied.

“I shall pray anyway,” Father Willibald said bravely.

Weland was stretching his huge arms and flexing his thick fingers. He stamped his feet, then settled into a wrestler’s stance, though I doubted this fight would keep to the grappling rules of wrestling. I had been watching him carefully. “He’s favoring his right leg,” I said quietly to Steapa, “which could mean his left leg was wounded once.”

I might have saved my breath because Steapa was not listening to me. His eyes were narrow and furious, while his face, always stark,
was now a taut mask of concentrated anger. He looked like a madman. I remembered the one time I had fought him. It had been on a day just before Yule, the same day that Guthrum’s Danes had descended unexpectedly on Cippanhamm, and Steapa had been calm before that fight. He had seemed to me, on that far-off winter’s day, like a workman going about his trade, confident in his tools and skill, but that was not how he looked now. Now he was in a private fury, and whether it was because he fought a hated pagan, or whether because, in Cippanhamm, he had underestimated me, I did not know. Nor did I care. “Remember,” I tried again, “Wayland the Smith was lame.”

“Start!” Sigefrid called behind me.

“God and Jesus,” Steapa bellowed, “hell and Christ!” He was not reacting to Sigefrid’s command, indeed I doubt he even heard it. Instead he was summoning his last tension, like a bowman drawing the cord of a hunting bow an extra inch to give the arrow deadly force, then Steapa howled like an animal and charged.

Weland charged too and they met like stags in the rutting season.

The Danes and Norsemen had crowded around, making a circle that was limited by the spears of Sigefrid’s bodyguard, and the watching warriors gave a gasp as those two men-animals crashed together. Steapa had lowered his head, hoping to drive his skull into Weland’s face, but Weland had moved at the last instant and instead their bodies slammed together and there was a flurry as they sought holds on each other. Steapa had a handful of Weland’s trews, Weland was pulling on Steapa’s hair, and both were using their free hands to flail at each other with clenched fists. Steapa tried to bite Weland, Weland butted him, then Steapa reached down in an attempt to crush Weland’s groin, and there was another desperate flurry as Weland brought a massive knee hard up between Steapa’s thighs.

“Dear Jesus,” Willibald murmured beside me.

Weland broke away from Steapa’s grip and punched hard at Steapa’s face and the sound of the fist landing was like the splintering wet noise of a butcher’s ax striking meat. There was blood pouring from
Steapa’s nose now, but he seemed oblivious to it. He traded blows, driving his fists at Weland’s ribs and head, then straightened his fingers and jabbed hard at the Dane’s eyes. Weland managed to avoid the gouging thrust and landed a knuckle-crunching blow on Steapa’s throat so that the Saxon staggered back, suddenly unable to breathe.

“Oh, my God, my God,” Willibald whispered, making the sign of the cross.

Weland followed fast, punching, then using his heavy arm rings to clout Steapa’s skull so that the metal ornaments raked across the Saxon’s scalp. More blood showed. Steapa was reeling, staggering, gasping, choking, and suddenly he dropped to his knees and the watching crowd gave a great jeer at his weakness. Weland drew back a mighty fist, but, before the blow was even launched, Steapa threw himself forward and seized the Dane’s left ankle. He pulled and twisted, and Weland went down like a felled oak. He crashed onto the turf and Steapa, snarling and bleeding, threw himself on top of his enemy and started punching again.

“They’ll kill each other,” Father Willibald said in a frightened voice.

“Sigefrid won’t allow his champion to die,” I said, though having said it I wondered if that was true. I turned to look at Sigefrid and found that he was watching me. He gave me a sly smile, then looked back to the fighters. This was his game, I thought. The outcome of the battle would make no difference to the discussions. Nothing, except perhaps Father Willibald’s life, depended on the savage display. It was just a game.

Weland managed to turn Steapa so they lay side by side on the grass. They exchanged ineffective blows and then, as if by mutual consent, rolled away from each other and stood again. There was a pause as both men drew breath, then they crashed together a second time. Steapa’s face was a pulp of blood, Weland’s bottom lip and left ear were bleeding, one eye was almost closed and his ribs had taken a pounding. For a moment the two men grappled, seeking holds, feet shifting, grunting, then Weland managed to grasp Steapa’s trews and threw him so that the big Saxon turned on the Dane’s left hip and
thumped down to the turf. Weland raised his foot to stamp Steapa’s groin, and Steapa seized the foot and twisted.