Sword Song

‘Why give him your sword?’ Sigefrid asked.

‘He’ll do no good with it,’ I said scornfully.

‘And if I break it?’ Sigefrid asked forcefully.

‘Then I’ll know the smith who made it didn’t know his business,’ I said.

‘It’s your blade, your choice,’ Sigefrid said dismissively, then turned to the priest who was holding Serpent-Breath so that her tip rested on the ground. ‘Are you ready, priest?’ he demanded.

‘Yes, lord,’ the priest said, and that was the first truthful answer he had given to the Norseman. For the priest had held a sword many times before and he did know how to fight and I doubted he was ready to die. He was Father Pyrlig.

If your fields are heavy and damp with clay then you can harness two oxen to an ard blade, and you can goad the beasts bloody so that the blade ploughs your ground. The beasts must pull together, which is why they are yoked together, and in life one ox is called Fate and the other is named Oaths.

Fate decrees what we do. We cannot escape fate. Wyrd bið ful ãræd. We have no choices in life, how can we? Because from the moment we are born the three sisters know where our thread will go and what patterns it will weave and how it will end. Wyrd bið ful ãræd.

Yet we choose our oaths. Alfred, when he gave me his sword and hands to enfold in my hands did not order me to make the oath. He offered it and I chose. But was it my choice? Or did the Fates choose for me? And if they did, why bother with oaths? I have often wondered about this and even now, as an old man, I still wonder. Did I choose Alfred? Or were the Fates laughing when I knelt and took his sword and hands in mine?

The three Norns were certainly laughing on that cold bright day in Lundene, because the moment I saw that the big-bellied priest was Father Pyrlig I knew that nothing was simple. I had realised in that instant that the Fates had not spun me a golden thread leading to a throne. They were laughing from the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. They had made a jest and I was its victim, and I had to make a choice.

Or did I? Maybe the Fates had made the choice, but at that moment, overshadowed by the gaunt stark makeshift cross, I believed I had to choose between the Thurgilson brothers and Pyrlig.

Sigefrid was no friend, but he was a formidable man, and with his alliance I could become king in Mercia. Gisela would be a queen. I could help Sigefrid, Erik, Haesten and Ragnar plunder Wessex. I could become rich. I would lead armies. I would fly my banner of the wolf’s head, and at Smoca’s heels would ride a mailed host of spearmen. My enemies would hear the thunder of our hooves in their nightmares. All that would be mine if I chose to ally myself with Sigefrid.

While by choosing Pyrlig I would lose all that the dead man had promised me. Which meant that Bjorn had lied, yet how could a man sent from his grave with a message from the Norns tell a lie? I remember thinking all that in the heartbeat before I made my choice, though in truth there was no hesitation. There was not even a heartbeat of hesitation.

Pyrlig was a Welshman, a Briton, and we Saxons hate the Britons. The Britons are treacherous thieves. They hide in their hill fastnesses and ride down to raid our lands, and they take our cattle and sometimes our women and children, and when we pursue them they go ever deeper into a wild place of mists, crags, marsh and misery. And Pyrlig was also a Christian, and I have no love for Christians. The choice would seem so easy! On one side a kingdom, Viking friends and wealth, and on the other a Briton who was the priest of a religion that sucks joy from this world like dusk swallowing daylight. Yet I did not think. I chose, or fate chose, and I chose friendship. Pyrlig was my friend. I had met him in Wessex’s darkest winter, when the Danes seemed to have conquered the kingdom, and Alfred with a few followers had been driven to take refuge in the western marshes. Pyrlig had been sent as an emissary by his Welsh king to discover and perhaps exploit Alfred’s weakness, but instead he had sided with Alfred and fought for Alfred. Pyrlig and I had stood in the shield wall together. We had fought side by side. We were Welshman and Saxon, Christian and pagan, and we should have been enemies, but I loved him like a brother.

So I gave him my sword and, instead of watching him nailed to a cross, I gave him the chance to fight for his life.

And, of course, it was not a fair fight. It was over in a moment! Indeed, it had hardly begun before it ended, and I alone was not astonished by its ending.

Sigefrid was expecting to face a fat, untrained priest, yet I knew that Pyrlig had been a warrior before he discovered his god. He had been a great warrior, a killer of Saxons and a man about whom his people had made songs. He did not look like a great warrior now. He was half naked, fat, dishevelled, bruised and beaten. He waited for Sigefrid’s attack with a look of horrified terror on his face and with the tip of Serpent-Breath’s blade still resting on the ground. He backed away as Sigefrid came closer, and began making mewing noises. Sigefrid laughed and swung his sword almost idly, expecting to knock Pyrlig’s blade out of his path and so expose that big belly to Fear-Giver’s gut-opening slash.

And Pyrlig moved like a weasel.

He lifted Serpent-Breath gracefully and danced a backwards pace so that Sigefrid’s careless swing went under her blade, and then he stepped towards his enemy and brought Serpent-Breath down hard, all wrist in that stroke, and sliced her against Sigefrid’s sword arm as it was still swinging outwards. The stroke was not powerful enough to break the mail armour, but it did drive Sigefrid’s sword arm further out and so opened the Norseman to a lunge. And Pyrlig lunged. He was so fast that Serpent-Breath was a silver blur that struck hard on Sigefrid’s chest.

Once again the blade did not pierce Sigefrid’s mail. Instead it pushed the big man backwards and I saw the fury come into the Norseman’s eyes and saw him bring Fear-Giver back in a mighty swing that would surely have decapitated Pyrlig in a red instant. There was so much strength and savagery in that huge cut, but Pyrlig, who seemed a heartbeat from death, simply used his wrist again. He did not seem to move, but still Serpent-Breath flickered up and sideways.

Serpent-Breath’s point met that death-swing on the inside of Sigefrid’s wrist and I saw the spray of blood like a red fog in the air.

And I saw Pyrlig smile. It was more of a grimace, but there was a warrior’s pride and a warrior’s triumph in that smile. His blade had ripped up Sigefrid’s forearm, slicing the mail apart and laying open flesh and skin and muscle from wrist to elbow, so that Sigefrid’s mighty blow faltered and stopped. The Norseman’s sword arm went limp, and Pyrlig suddenly stepped back and turned Serpent-Breath so he could cut downwards with her and at last he appeared to put some effort into the blade. She made a whistling noise as the Welshman slashed her onto Sigefrid’s bleeding wrist. He almost severed the wrist, but the blade glanced off a bone and took the Norseman’s thumb instead, and Fear-Giver fell to the arena floor and Serpent-Breath was in Sigefrid’s beard and at his throat.

‘No!’ I shouted.

Sigefrid was too appalled to be angry. He could not believe what had happened. He must have realised by that moment that his opponent was a swordsman, but still he could not believe he had lost. He brought up his bleeding hands as if to seize Pyrlig’s blade, and I saw the Welshman’s blade twitch and Sigefrid, sensing death a hair’s breadth away, went still.

‘No,’ I repeated.

‘Why shouldn’t I kill him?’ Pyrlig asked, and his voice was a warrior’s voice now, hard and merciless, and his eyes were warrior’s eyes, flint-cold and furious.

‘No,’ I said again. I knew that if Pyrlig killed Sigefrid then Sigefrid’s men would have their revenge.

Erik knew it too. ‘You won, priest,’ he said softly. He walked to his brother. ‘You won,’ he said again to Pyrlig, ‘so put down the sword.’

‘Does he know I beat him?’ Pyrlig asked, staring into Sigefrid’s dark eyes.

‘I speak for him,’ Erik said. ‘You won the fight, priest, and you are free.’

‘I have to deliver my message first,’ Pyrlig said. Blood dripped from Sigefrid’s hand. He still stared at the Welshman. ‘The message we bring from King Æthelstan,’ Pyrlig said, meaning Guthrum, ‘is that you are to leave Lundene. It is not part of the land ceded by Alfred to Danish rule. Do you understand that?’ He twitched Serpent-Breath again, though Sigefrid said nothing. ‘Now I want horses,’ Pyrlig went on, ‘and Lord Uhtred and his men are to escort us out of Lundene. Is that agreed?’

Erik looked at me and I nodded consent. ‘It is agreed,’ Erik said to Pyrlig.

I took Serpent-Breath from Pyrlig’s hand. Erik was holding his brother’s wounded arm. For a moment I thought Sigefrid would attack the unarmed Welshman, but Erik managed to turn him away.

Horses were fetched. The men in the arena were silent and resentful. They had seen their leader humiliated, and they did not understand why Pyrlig was allowed to leave with the other envoys, but they accepted Erik’s decision.

‘My brother is headstrong,’ Erik told me. He had taken me aside to talk while the horses were saddled.

‘It seems the priest knew how to fight after all,’ I said apologetically.

Erik frowned, not with anger, but puzzlement. ‘I am curious about their god,’ he admitted. He was watching his brother, whose wounds were being bandaged. ‘Their god does seem to have power,’ Erik said. I slid Serpent-Breath into her scabbard and Erik saw the silver cross that decorated her pommel. ‘You must think so too?’

‘That was a gift,’ I said, ‘from a woman. A good woman. A lover. Then the Christian god took hold of her and she loves men no more.’

Erik reached out and touched the cross tentatively. ‘You don’t think it gives the blade power?’ he asked.

‘The memory of her love might,’ I said, ‘but power comes from here.’ I touched my amulet, Thor’s hammer.

‘I fear their god,’ Erik said.

‘He’s harsh,’ I said, ‘unkind. He’s a god who likes to make laws.’

‘Laws?’

‘You’re not allowed to lust after your neighbour’s wife,’ I said.

Erik laughed at that, then saw I was serious. ‘Truly?’ he asked with disbelief in his voice.

‘Priest!’ I called to Pyrlig. ‘Does your god let men lust after their neighbours’ wives?’

‘He lets them, lord,’ Pyrlig said humbly as if he feared me, ‘but he disapproves.’

‘Did he make a law about it?’

‘Yes, lord, he did. And he made another that says you mustn’t lust after your neighbour’s ox.’

‘There,’ I said to Erik. ‘You can’t even wish for an ox if you’re a Christian.’

‘Strange,’ he said thoughtfully. He was looking at Guthrum’s envoys who had so narrowly escaped losing their heads. ‘You don’t mind escorting them?’

‘No.’

‘It might be no bad thing if they live,’ he said quietly. ‘Why give Guthrum cause to attack us?’

‘He won’t,’ I said confidently, ‘whether you kill them or not.’

‘Probably not,’ he agreed, ‘but we agreed that if the priest won, then they would all live, so let them live. And you’re sure you don’t mind escorting them away?’

‘Of course not,’ I said.

‘Then come back here,’ Erik said warmly, ‘we need you.’

‘You need Ragnar,’ I corrected him.

‘True,’ he confessed, and smiled. ‘See those men safe out of the city, then come back.’

‘I have a wife and children to fetch first,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, and smiled again. ‘You are fortunate in that. But you will come back?’

‘Bjorn the Dead told me so,’ I said, carefully evading his question.

‘So he did,’ Erik said. He embraced me. ‘We need you,’ he said, ‘and together we can take this whole island.’

We left, riding through the city streets, out through the western gate that was known as Ludd’s Gate, and then down to the ford across the River Fleot. Sihtric was bent over his saddle’s pommel, still suffering from the kicking he had received from Sigefrid. I looked behind as we left the ford, half expecting that Sigefrid would have countermanded his brother’s decision and sent men to pursue us, but none appeared. We spurred through the marshy ground and then up the slight slope to the Saxon town.

I did not stay on the road that led westwards, but instead turned onto the wharves where a dozen ships were moored. These were river boats that traded with Wessex and Mercia. Few shipmasters cared to shoot the dangerous gap in the ruined bridge that the Romans had thrown across the Temes, so these ships were smaller, manned by oarsmen, and all of them had paid dues to me at Coccham. They all knew me, because they did business with me on every trip.

We forced our way through heaps of merchandise, past open fires and through the gangs of slaves loading or unloading cargoes. Only one ship was ready to make a voyage. She was named the Swan and I knew her well. She had a Saxon crew, and she was nearly ready to leave because her oarsmen were standing on the wharf while the shipmaster, a man called Osric, finished his business with the merchant whose goods he was carrying. ‘You’re taking us too,’ I told him.

We left most of the horses behind, though I insisted that room was found for Smoca, and Finan wanted to keep his stallion too, and so the beasts were coaxed into the Swan’s open hold where they stood shivering. Then we left. The tide was flooding, the oars bit, and we glided upriver. ‘Where am I taking you, lord?’ Osric the shipmaster asked me.

‘To Coccham,’ I said.

And back to Alfred.

The river was wide, grey and sullen. It flowed strongly, fed by the winter rains against which the incoming tide gave less and less resistance. The Swan made hard work of the early rowing as the ten oarsmen fought the current and I caught Finan’s eye and we exchanged smiles. He was remembering, as I was, our long months at the oars of a slave-rowed trading ship. We had suffered, bled and shivered, and we had thought that only death could release us from that fate, but now other men rowed us as the Swan fought around the great swooping bends of the Temes that were softened by the wide floods that stretched into the water meadows.

I sat on the small platform built in the ship’s blunt bow and Father Pyrlig joined me there. I had given him my cloak, which he clutched tight around him. He had found some bread and cheese, which did not surprise me because I have never known a man eat so much. ‘How did you know I’d beat Sigefrid?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t know,’ I said. ‘In fact I was hoping he’d beat you, and that there would be one less Christian.’

He smiled at that, then gazed at the waterfowl on the flood water. ‘I knew I had two or three strokes only,’ he said, ‘before he realised I knew what I was doing. Then he’d have cut the flesh off my bones.’

‘He would,’ I agreed, ‘but I reckoned you had those three strokes and they’d prove enough.’

‘Thank you for that, Uhtred,’ he said, then broke off a lump of cheese and gave it to me. ‘How are you these days?’

‘Bored.’

‘I hear you’re married?’

‘I’m not bored with her,’ I said hurriedly.

‘Good for you! Me, now? I can’t stand my wife. Dear God, what a tongue that viper has. She can split a sheet of slate just by talking to it! You’ve not met my wife, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Sometimes I curse God for taking Adam’s rib and making Eve, but then I see some young girl and my heart leaps and I think God knew what he was doing after all.’

I smiled. ‘I thought Christian priests were supposed to set an example?’

‘And what’s wrong with admiring God’s creations?’ Pyrlig asked indignantly. ‘Especially a young one with plump round tits and a fine fat rump? It would be sinful of me to ignore such signs of his grace.’ He grinned, then looked anxious. ‘I heard you were taken captive?’

‘I was.’

‘I prayed for you.’

‘Thank you for that,’ I said, and meant it. I did not worship the Christian god, but like Erik I feared he had some power, so prayers to him were not wasted.

‘But I hear it was Alfred who had you released?’ Pyrlig asked.

I paused. As ever I hated to acknowledge any debt to Alfred, but I grudgingly conceded that he had helped. ‘He sent the men who freed me,’ I said, ‘yes.’

‘And you reward him, Lord Uhtred, by naming yourself King of Mercia?’

‘You heard that?’ I asked cautiously.

‘Of course I heard it! That great oaf of a Norseman bawled it just five paces from my ear. Are you King of Mercia?’

‘No,’ I said, resisting the urge to add ‘not yet’.

‘I didn’t think you were,’ Pyrlig said mildly. ‘I’d have heard about that, wouldn’t I? And I don’t think you will be, not unless Alfred wants it.’

‘Alfred can piss down his own throat for all I care,’ I said.

‘And of course I should tell him what I heard,’ Pyrlig said.

‘Yes,’ I said bitterly, ‘you should.’

I leaned against the curving timber of the ship’s stem and stared at the backs of the oarsmen. I was also watching for any sign of a pursuing ship, half expecting to see some fast warship swept along by banks of long oars, but no mast showed above the river’s long bends, which suggested Erik had successfully persuaded his brother against taking an instant revenge for the humiliation Pyrlig had given him. ‘So whose idea is it,’ Pyrlig asked, ‘that you should be king in Mercia?’ He waited for me to answer, but I said nothing. ‘It’s Sigefrid, isn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘Sigefrid’s crazy idea.’

‘Crazy?’ I asked innocently.

‘The man’s no fool,’ Pyrlig said, ‘and his brother certainly isn’t. They know Æthelstan’s getting old in East Anglia, and they ask who’ll be king after him? And there’s no king in Mercia. But he can’t just take Mercia, can he? The Mercian Saxons will fight him and Alfred will come to their aid, and the Thurgilson brothers will find themselves facing a fury of Saxons! So Sigefrid has this idea to rally men and take East Anglia first, then Mercia, and then Wessex! And to do all that he really needs Earl Ragnar to bring men from Northumbria.’

I was appalled that Pyrlig, a friend of Alfred’s, should know all that Sigefrid, Erik and Haesten planned, but I showed no reaction. ‘Ragnar won’t fight,’ I said, trying to end the conversation.

‘Unless you ask him,’ Pyrlig said sharply. I just shrugged. ‘But what can Sigefrid offer you?’ Pyrlig asked, and, when I did not respond again, provided the answer himself. ‘Mercia.’

I smiled condescendingly. ‘It all sounds very complicated.’

‘Sigefrid and Haesten,’ Pyrlig said, ignoring my flippant comment, ‘have ambitions to be kings. But there are only four kingdoms here! They can’t take Northumbria because Ragnar won’t let them. They can’t take Mercia because Alfred won’t let them. But Æthelstan’s getting old, so they could take East Anglia. And why not finish the job? Take Wessex? Sigefrid says he’ll put that drunken nephew of Alfred’s on the throne, and that’ll help calm the Saxons for a few months until Sigefrid murders him, and by then Haesten will be King of East Anglia and someone, you perhaps, King of Mercia. Doubtless they’ll turn on you then and divide Mercia between them. That’s the idea, Lord Uhtred, and it’s not a bad one! But who’d follow those two brigands?’

‘No one,’ I lied.

‘Unless they were convinced that the Fates were on their side,’ Pyrlig said almost casually, then looked at me. ‘Did you meet the dead man?’ he asked innocently, and I was so astonished by the question that I could not answer. I just stared into his round, battered face. ‘Bjorn, he’s called,’ the Welshman said, putting another lump of cheese into his mouth.

‘The dead don’t lie,’ I blurted out.

‘The living do! By God, they do! Even I lie, Lord Uhtred,’ he grinned at me mischievously, ‘I sent a message to my wife and said she’d hate being in East Anglia!’ He laughed. Alfred had asked Pyrlig to go to East Anglia because he was a priest and because he spoke Danish, and his task there had been to educate Guthrum in Christian ways. ‘In fact she’d love it there!’ Pyrlig went on. ‘It’s warmer than home and there are no hills to speak of. Flat and wet, that’s East Anglia, and without a proper hill anywhere! And my wife’s never been fond of hills, which is why I probably found God. I used to live on hilltops just to keep away from her, and you’re closer to God on a hilltop. Bjorn isn’t dead.’

He had said the last three words with a sudden brutality, and I answered him just as harshly. ‘I saw him.’

‘You saw a man come from a grave, that’s what you saw.’

‘I saw him!’ I insisted.

‘Of course you did! And you never thought to question what you saw, did you?’ The Welshman asked the question harshly. ‘Bjorn had been put in that grave just before you came! They piled earth on him and he breathed through a reed.’

I remembered Bjorn spitting something out of his mouth as he staggered upright. Not the harp string, but something else. I had thought it a lump of earth, but in truth it had been paler. I had not thought about it at the time, but now I understood that the resurrection had all been a trick and I sat on the foredeck of the Swan and felt the last remnants of my dream crumbling. I would not be king. ‘How do you know all this?’ I asked bitterly.

‘King Æthelstan’s no fool. He has his spies.’ Pyrlig put a hand on my arm. ‘Was he very convincing?’

‘Very,’ I said, still bitter.

‘He’s one of Haesten’s men, and if we ever catch him he’ll go properly to hell. So what did he tell you?’

‘That I would be king in Mercia,’ I said softly. I was to be king of Saxon and Dane, enemy of the Welsh, king between the rivers and lord of all I ruled. ‘I believed him,’ I said ruefully.

‘But how could you be King of Mercia?’ Pyrlig asked, ‘unless Alfred made you king?’

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