The Edge of Light (26 page)

At the first farmstead they came upon they took five sacks of barley, a wagonload of baled hay, three cows, and a horse. The house was deserted and some of the men wanted to search the woods for the inhabitants, but Sidroc called them off. “Women come last,” he said. “First come supplies.”

They went along the river for a few miles, then cut north and west, where the richer farms seemed to lie. Erlend was given the job of herding the cattle, and by the time they reached the small market village called Englefield, he was heartily sick of the raid and wishing they were back in Reading again. He had never liked cattle.

Suddenly, out of the trees surrounding the market common where the Danes had halted to rest, there began to rain a deadly shower of arrows. Chaos reigned in the Danish camp as men sought for weapons and cover. Erlend could hear Sidroc’s deep bellow as he grabbed for his shield, sword, and ax. The arrows came again; then men were pouring out of the woods. Before the Danes could do more than clutch their weapons, the West Saxons were upon them.

The ground was still icy and Erlend fought to keep his balance as he hacked with his ax at bareheaded men amidst the plunder wagons, horses, and bellowing cattle. The confusion was terrible. Then the cry came, “More men are coming!” All around Erlend men began to break away and run. It took Erlend a minute to realize that it was the Danes who were running. A tall oxlike West Saxon was coming at him with sword upraised. Erlend ducked under a wagon loaded with barrels of honey and took to his heels. He was lucky enough to catch a horse at the edge of the field; most of Sidroc’s raiding party had to run all the way back to Reading,

Word came of Ealdorman Ethelwulfs victory at Englefield while Ethelred and Alfred were at Mass the morning the West Saxon army was set to leave Winchester. The news flamed through the ranks of armed men. The Danes were not invincible!

“This could not have fallen out better,” Alfred said to Ethelred as they stood side by side on the steps of the minster. “Such news will put heart into our men.”

“Yes,” Ethelred agreed. He added cautiously, “But remember, Alfred, it was only a raiding party Ethelwulf attacked.”

“And Ethelwulf had only the Berkshire fyrd,” Alfred retorted immediately. He grinned. “Don’t be so cautious, Ethelred. This is wonderful news!”

Ethelred’s returning smile was not nearly so carefree. “I know, I know.” Then, with a sigh: “Well, I suppose it is time to be off. The men seem ready.”

“The men are ready and so are we.” The king’s and Alfred’s horses were being brought up by Ethelred’s horse thane. Alfred swung into the saddle with his distinctive lithe grace, took up his reins, and waited while Ethelred mounted more slowly. Then the brothers moved forward to join the mounted ealdormen at the head of the vast army of foot soldiers. By ten in the morning the West Saxons were on the road that led to Reading.

It took the slow-moving supply wagons two days to reach the old Roman town of Silchester. The army encamped behind the crumbling walls, and Alfred said to Ethelred, “I think we should try a surprise attack.”

Ethelred did not answer.

“They cannot know that we are here,” Alfred continued persuasively.

“Considering how long it took Burgred and Edmund to gather their forces, the Danes must think they have weeks before we will come up on them. Surprise is to our advantage, Ethelred.”

“I am not sure,” Ethelred said slowly. “By all accounts, they have fortified Reading very well.”

“They fortified Nottingham very well also. The Danes will always choose a site that is easily fortified. We are fooling ourselves if we think they will give us the advantage in that respect.”

Ethelred began to pluck at his eyebrow. “That is true, I suppose. Still, Alfred … I am not sure that we should be the ones to make the first move. Perhaps we ought to wait, see what they are going to do …”

Alfred strove to contain his impatience. He said calmly and reasonably, “Ealdorman Ethelwulf made the first move, and see what happened.”

“Ealdorman Ethelwulf was not attacking the whole of the Danish army!”

Alfred’s face wore an uncharacteristically hard expression. Quite suddenly he looked ten years older. He said, “Ethelred, we must act whilst we have the fyrd out in force. Otherwise the same thing will happen that happened in Mercia. The men will begin to go back to their farms. If we wait until that happens, if we wait for the Danes to move first, then we are lost.”

Ethelred looked for a long moment into the face of his brother. Then he said, “Perhaps you are right, Alfred. For certain, we should have listened to you at Nottingham.” He dropped his hand from his eyebrow. “All right,” he said with decision. “We will try a surprise attack upon Reading.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” Ethelred quirked his much-abused eyebrow. “Why wait?”

Alfred laughed and once more looked his age. He got to his feet and asked, “Shall I pass the word to the ealdormen?”

“Yes,” said Ethelred quietly. “Do so.”

Reading was surrounded by rivers, the Kennet to its southwest, the Thames to its north, and the Loddon to its east. On its southeastern exposure the Danes had built earthworks to protect their camp. The West Saxons came from the south, up the Roman road, along the Kennet as it wound into Reading, right to the base of the earthworks. The surprise was absolute. They fell on all the Danes who were outside the walls and slaughtered them.

Erlend was within the camp when the cries went up from without the walls. He had been playing his harp for his uncle, who had evinced surprising interest both in Erlend’s skill and in the large number of Saxon poems that Erlend knew.

“Name of the Raven!” swore Guthrum, his blue eyes glittering in the cold January sun. The noise from without the walls was bloodcurdling. “The bastards are attacking!”

Within the camp all the men were running for armor and for weapons. Erlend kept beside his uncle as Guthrum mustered his men. “Fall on them like wolves!” Guthrum shouted. And, with his glittering eyes and his white teeth bared in the sunlight, he did indeed look like the wolf he invoked. Guthrum slammed his helmet down over his short hair, lifted his sword and his battleax, and made for the ramparts. His men followed, each taking his accustomed place in the fighting wedge favored by Viking warriors.

The Viking army was extremely well-trained. That was something Erlend had noted and admired in the weeks since he had joined his uncle. Guthrum’s men had been with him for years, as had the men of most of the other kings and jarls. Most had been ships crews originally, with muscles hardened by rowing and comradeship strengthened by facing together the storms of the North Sea. There was no social distinction made in the crews of the long ships. All were warriors. And here on land, the strength, the discipline, the comradeship they had learned on the sea made them superior soldiers, brave and skilled and loyal to their leader. There was not a man among the Danes who went over the wall on this cold clear January day who did not think they would drive this upstart West Saxon army to its knees.

And indeed the Danes were a fearful sight as they swarmed out of Reading to fall upon the West Saxons. The sun shone upon the metal of their helmets and on the gold or silver bracelets that encircled their arms and their wrists. It shone on their swords and their battleaxes and their polished byrnies. It brought out the brilliant colors in their shields, in their pennants, and in the grim banner of the Raven that floated over Halfdan, their battle leader. Their battle cries were bloodcurdling and for a moment the West Saxons swayed and began to fall back.

Then there came a shout, a cry of
“Wessex! Wessex!”
and the fyrds were pressing forward again. For nearly an hour the battle raged at the gates of Reading. But the West Saxons, busily engaged in front, did not realize that Halfdan had sent a party of men under the jarl Harald to slip around to their rear and cut off their retreat to the south. It was not until the cry went up from the rear, rolling like thunder over the ranks of hard-fighting men,
“We are trapped! We are trapped!”
that Ethelred and Alfred realized what had happened.

Guthrum turned to Erlend with a wolfish grin. “Harald has cut off their escape. They are hemmed in by the rivers now. We have them.”

“God Almighty, Alfred,” Ethelred cried to his brother. “What shall we do? They have us trapped!”

“Fight on!” Alfred answered. But even as he spoke, he could see that panic was beginning to spread among the fyrds. In a very short time the men would break and run. And once they did that, they would be cut down without mercy.

God.
Alfred forced his brain to function. He knew Reading, knew these rivers. He stood for a moment, safe within the midst of a circle Ethelred’s companion thanes, and said to his brother, “There is a ford over the Loddon at Twyford. We must fall back on Wiscelet.”

“All right,” Ethelred turned to his thanes with the command and soon word began to pass to all the ealdormen.

Fall back on Wiscelet. Hold together and fall back on Wiscelet. We shall cross the Loddon at Twyford.

The army rallied to the call of its leaders. Holding together under their ealdormen, the thanes and ceorls and townsfolk who comprised the West Saxon fyrds began an orderly fighting retreat to the west. An hour later they thoroughly surprised their pursuers by fording the Loddon where the Danes did not think it could be forded. The Danes hesitated, chose not to follow, and the West Saxons were free in the world.

The West Saxons went north and west, toward the Ridgeway and the Downs; in winter it was essential to keep to a traversible roadway, and the Ridgeway was an all-weather track. As soon as they were safe away from Reading, Ethelred sent a rider galloping to Mercia to request that Burgred bring the Mercian fyrd to the immediate aid of Wessex. Ethelred fixed the meeting point at Lowbury Hill, the highest point on the eastern part of Ashdown, the name given by the West Saxons to this eastern line of the Berkshire Downs. Lowbury was a well-known spot, marked by its height and by an ancient earthwork from the days of the Old Ones. The Mercians should be able to find it with little trouble.

The weather held cold but clear as the West Saxon army made its way through the deserted countryside. They had sustained hard losses and been driven from the field, but even so, their spirits were high. They had fought well and their leaders had extricated them deftly from what could have been a fatal situation. They had hurt the Danes, that was sure. The very fact that the enemy had not pursued them once they crossed the river was an indication of how badly the northmen had been hurt.

Alfred’s thoughts reflected those of his army. They had come so close! If it had not been for their inexperience in letting the Danes get behind them . .

Among the list of the West Saxon fallen was Ethelwulf, the Ealdorman of Berkshire who had won the field for them so bravely at Englefield. “A courageous leader,” Ethelred said when learning the news from one of the ealdorman’s hearthband thanes. “A bitter loss.”

Most of the Saxon dead had been left behind before the walls of Reading, but Ethelwulf’s thanes had brought the ealdorman’s body across the river with them. One of the first things the army did when it reached Lowbury Hill on January 5 was bury Ethelwulf decently, with prayers said by the king’s own household priest.

The West Saxons made camp right on the Ridgeway half a mile to the southwest of Lowbury Hill and prepared to wait for Burgred and his Mercians. Alfred also sent to his nearby manors of Wantage and Lambourn for reinforcements. Free or unfree, went the order, all able-bodied men who could carry a spear were to report to the army camp on Ashdown. By nightfall of January 7 there were several hundred more West Saxons in Ethelred’s camp.

The guard stationed on Lowbury Hill by day and night kept the watch toward the north, the direction from which the Mercians would come. The short winter day waned toward dusk. The West Saxons repaired their weapons and fed their bellies and waited. Finally, as the light was dimming fast, there came the sound they had all been listening for: galloping hooves from Lowbury Hill. The king and Alfred were on their feet when the scout came thundering into camp.

“My lord! My lord!” The thane was one of Ethelred’s, young and chosen for his unusually sharp eyes. He was out of breath. It was not gladness that rang in his voice, however, but fear. “Coming up the Ridgeway, my lord! From Reading! It is not the Mercians I see. It is the Danes!”

The West Saxon attack upon Reading had completely surprised the Danes, “They actually attacked,” said Guthrum to Erlend in astonishment as they prepared for sleep in Guthrum’s booth on the night of January 4. Guthrum’s teeth gleamed whitely in the light of the oil lamp. “Wonderful. It seems there is one English kingdom after all with stomach enough to light us.”

“Did not East Anglia fight?” Erlend asked. Since coming to England he had done his best to acquaint himself with the course of the Danish army’s campaign.

“Not until we left them no choice.” His uncle’s voice was full of contempt. “Nor could they keep the field against us for above fifteen minutes.”

“These West Saxons seem strong enough,” Erlend ventured. Having been both at Englefield and at Reading, he felt he had the experience to make a judgment.

“They let themselves be outflanked today. If it had not been for that ford …”

Prudently Erlend kept silent. The Danish leaders were not pleased with the escape of the West Saxons across the Loddon. Halfdan’s curses had been heard round the camp when he learned what had happened.

“They are a pack of farmers only,” said Guthrum. He leaned to blow out the lamp. “In the open, in fair battle, they could no more stand against us than did the East Anglians.”

Silence fell. Erlend heard Guthrum turn over in the straw of his bed, preparing to sleep. “Uncle?” he asked very softly. “Will we seek a battle, then?”

“Perhaps.” Guthrum sounded sleepy. “The war council will meet tomorrow.” Then: “Go to sleep, Nephew.”

Erlend lay down on his own straw. He was wide-awake. He had killed a man this day. The first man he had ever killed. He had felt surprise when he saw the man go down. It had been a strange feeling, not at all the wild triumph he had thought he would feel. Then another sword had hacked at his mail-protected shoulder, and he had forgotten the man on the ground at his feet.