The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10) (38 page)

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Authors: Bernard Cornwell

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BOOK: The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10)

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‘Owes you?’ I scoffed. ‘You think he’s grateful? He’ll just hate you the more.’

‘Probably. But you’ll keep him here until he pays a ransom,’ he smiled, ‘to you. He’s a rich man, and you, my friend, have spent much gold to take this rock. By the time he’s paid the ransom he won’t be a rich man any longer. That way we weaken him.’

I growled to hide my pleasure in that thought. ‘One day I’ll kill him,’ I said, reluctantly conceding the argument.

‘Probably you will, lord, but not today, and not till he has refilled your coffers with gold.’

And that night we had a feast. It was a poor feast, mostly fish, bread, and cheese, but there was plenty of ale, and that made it a feast. And those few of my cousin’s men who we trusted, mostly the young ones, feasted with us. The rest we had pushed out to be masterless men in the hills. The survivors of Æthelhelm’s red-cloaked guards were in the lower courtyard, between the Low and High Gates. I would send them south in the morning, letting one man in three carry a weapon to defend themselves on their long walk home. Æthelhelm himself sat at the high table as his rank deserved. He was as genial as ever, though his eyes looked haunted. I saw my son pouring ale for his daughter, so pretty and pale, and she laughed when my son leaned close and whispered in her ear. Æthelhelm heard the laughter and caught my eye. We stared at each other for a moment, enemies still, then a gust of cheering from the lower tables gave us both an excuse to look away. I missed Eadith, but one of Æthelhelm’s ships was still seaworthy, and in the morning I would send Berg and a small crew south to bring our women and families to their new home.

My cousin’s harpist played the song of Ida. My men sang. They danced. They boasted of their prowess, they told stories of their fight, and they did not confess to the horror. There were too many wounded men lying in a smaller hall. We had collected cobwebs and moss, torn up my cousin’s banners to make bandages, and tried to staunch their wounds, but I saw one of my cousin’s priests, a young man, giving the Christians his church’s last rites. Others lay gripping a sword hilt or a seax. Some had the weapon tied to a hand, determined to meet me one day in Valhalla.

And that night I stood with Finan on the rock ledge outside the hall. The moon was long on the water. Its reflection made a shimmering path, the same path that Ida the Flamebearer had followed to make his new home on a strange coast. And there were tears in my eyes to blur that long bright path.

Because I was home.

Historical Note

The historical note is where I confess my sins by revealing what in a novel is invention or where I have egregiously changed history, yet
The Flame Bearer
contains so much invention that an historical note is almost nonsensical, because just about everything in the novel is fiction. There was no conference between Edward, Æthelflaed, and Sigtryggr, no confrontation at Hornecastre, and no Scottish invasion of Northumbria in
AD
917.

That confession aside, the reader can at least have some confidence that many of the characters in the novel existed, and that the ambitions and actions I have given them are consistent with their known behaviour and policies. The one exception to that rather feeble defence concerns Ealdorman Æthelhelm. He did exist, and he was an extremely wealthy and powerful West Saxon noble, but he was probably dead before 917, and I have prolonged his life because he makes a useful opponent to Uhtred. He was King Edward’s father-in-law, and it is a fair assumption that he wanted Æthelstan disowned and disinherited in favour of Edward’s second son, Ælfweard, who, of course, was Æthelhelm’s grandson. The rivalry between Æthelstan and Ælfweard will become important in time, but during the story told in
The Flame Bearer
it merely serves to give Æthelhelm his motives for causing trouble. Those folk, like Æthelhelm, who denied Æthelstan’s legitimacy claimed that Edward had not married his mother, and that Æthelstan was therefore a bastard. The historical record is not entirely clear on the truth of that claim, and I have chosen in the novels to believe in Æthelstan’s legitimacy. Edward apparently attempted to protect the young Æthelstan by sending him to his sister, Æthelflaed, who was the ruler of Mercia, and Æthelstan did find safety in that kingdom. This present novel also suggests that Edward was estranged from Ælflæd, Æthelhelm’s daughter, and that too appears to have been likely.

The background story to the novels about Uhtred tells of the making of England, or Englaland, as it was called then. When the novels begin, back in the 870s, there was no England. Nor indeed was there a Wales or a Scotland. The island of Britain was divided into many kingdoms. Those kingdoms squabbled endlessly, but the Viking incursions and settlements provoked a response that will result in a united kingdom of England. A similar process happened in Wales, chiefly under Hywel Dda, and in Scotland under Constantin, both of them great kings who began the unifications of their realms. Although I have traduced Constantin by suggesting he made an unsuccessful invasion of Northumbria in 917, the idea is not altogether ridiculous; he was to make such an invasion later. He was wary of the growing Saxon power to his south, and, in time, attempted to break it.

When Uhtred was born the country that was to be called England was split into four kingdoms. The Danes conquered three of them and very nearly captured the last, Wessex, in the south. The story of England’s making is a tale of how that southern kingdom of Wessex gradually recaptured all the lands to the north. The dream of a united England properly belongs to Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, who died in 899 and whose achievement was to secure Wessex itself, without which the process could never have happened. Alfred also adopted the system of burhs, or boroughs, which were fortified towns. The Danes, though fearsome warriors, were not equipped for siege warfare, and the existence of these strongly walled towns with their large garrisons frustrated them. The same tactic was used in Mercia, where Æthelflaed’s husband ruled much of the southern part of that country. After his death, Æthelflaed, now recognised as Mercia’s ruler, pushed her frontier northwards into Danish territory and secured what she had conquered by building more burhs. Her brother Edward was ruling in Wessex, and he was doing much the same in East Anglia, and so, by 917, the Danes had lost almost all of their territory except for Northumbria. The old kingdom of East Anglia was not revived, it was simply swallowed by Wessex, but Mercia still clung to its separate identity. The West Saxons undoubtedly wanted to integrate Mercia into their kingdom, but there was considerable Mercian resistance to the idea of becoming just another part of powerful Wessex, and Æthelflaed, despite her brother being the ruler of Wessex, encouraged Mercia to preserve its independence. Nevertheless, by 917, Mercia was certainly deeply indebted to and under the influence of the West Saxon monarchy. England is not yet born, but nor is the idea of a single country for all who spoke the English tongue the impossible dream it must have seemed in Alfred’s lifetime. All that remains to be conquered is Northumbria, which was ruled by Sigtryggr, though I have written myself into an historical novelist’s dilemma by marrying him to Stiorra, a fictional character.

The fortress of Bebbanburg existed. It still does, only now it is called Bamburgh Castle and is a magnificent and much-restored mediaeval stronghold built where the ancient fort once stood. An Angle called Ida, who his British enemies called Ida the Flamebearer, sailed from mainland Europe and captured the crag and its fort sometime around the middle of the sixth century
AD
. He established a small kingdom called Bernicia, encompassing much of what is now Northumberland and southern Scotland. I stubbornly call all the English-speaking tribes the Saxons, but of course there were Angles and Jutes among them, and, perversely, the English took the name of their country from the Angles rather than from the dominant southern Saxons. Ida’s Anglish family remained the lords of Bebbanburg until the eleventh century, and many of them took the name Uhtred. My Uhtred is fictional, and his struggle for the possession of Bebbanburg (which was named for Queen Bebba of Bernicia, the wife of Ida’s grandson) is equally fictional. What is remarkable, perhaps, is that the family remained in possession of the great fortress throughout the period of Danish rule, preserving it as a Saxon and a Christian enclave in a Viking and pagan country. I suspect they collaborated, but we do not know, and certainly the fortress they built was formidable, one of the great citadels of pre-Norman Britain. Visitors to today’s castle might wonder where the harbour and harbour channel are, but that shallow anchorage and its entrance have silted up over the centuries and no longer exist. The family that used the name Uhtred does still exist, and still uses a variant of that name as their surname, though they no longer live at Bamburgh. I am a descendant of theirs, which persuades me that I can take liberties with their distinguished history.

So, in my fictional world, Uhtred is again the rightful lord and owner of Bebbanburg. His great ambition of regaining his father’s fortress is fulfilled, but the greater ambition, that of one country for all who spoke the English tongue, remains unfinished. Which means, whatever Uhtred might think, that his story is also unfinished.

Enjoyed
The Flame Bearer
?

Go back and discover the first book in Bernard Cornwell’s bestselling series on the making of England and the fate of his great hero Uhtred of Bebbanburg, now the basis for BBC2’s major Autumn 2015 TV series THE LAST KINGDOM

Book One of
The Last Kingdom

Available now

About the Author

Bernard Cornwell was born in London, raised in Essex and worked for the BBC for eleven years before meeting Judy, his American wife. Denied an American work permit, he wrote a novel instead and has been writing ever since. He and Judy divide their time between Cape Cod and Charleston, South Carolina.

www.bernardcornwell.net

/bernardcornwell