The Storyteller and Other Tales Page 9

  He won a kingdom by it, for the little time it endured.

  Constantine flung himself before the King. Mordred drew in his own defence, shouting, “Amhar — Nimiane!”

  Amhar plucked me from Constantine’s wild path, dragged me to a horse. I heard Arthur shouting, “Hold! Peace!” but mounted warriors were rushing in, ours from the hill, his from behind. Both sides raised the cry of Treachery, treachery. There was no survival on that field but by sword’s edge.

  Amhar left me in the shadow of the woods and rode, to Mordred or to his father, or only into the general madness.

  So many died that day, true men, true to Arthur, true to Mordred. I saw them all. Old men, who had thought Briton would never fight Briton again. Boys I had seen grow to men, withstanding Saxon raids. Cai. Arthur, my King, my only King. Mordred, my brooding angel, who was friend, lover, dear as brother. Mordred.

  They say they killed one another, he and the King. It is not true. Battle swept them apart — face to face, mounted, visible to all, they might still have stayed the fury. But they were washed into the milling madness afoot, and traitor was the word cried upon them both. They died. I wept, and cursed the fool Constantine, that he might come to know as we had there was no withstanding the shifting of the world.

  It was he who had to treat with Childriche, when spring came again.

  I had them carried away to the Ladies. I would not leave them for their graves to become shrines, or places of abhorrence. We left Arthur’s name, for what strength it could lend to Constantine against the heathen.

  Childriche was cautious, for a little, hearing rumours of the King’s return. But Constantine was never blessed in his kingship, and his was an ill-fated line. Fate and Fortune stood against him, and the weight of Saxon armies.

  I do not believe in curses, even mine.

  Amhar lived, lamed and blind, to make songs in the orchard of Avalon over his father’s grave, and his friend’s. After a few seasons he began to smile once more, making lighter songs for our children.

  A northern tide will come against the Saxons. They will make of us a story to give them heart, as they hold back the heathen raids and watch for longboats. They will lose their kingdom in the end, and dream of ours. But that is all to come. The British kings and the Saxon fight, and every year the warbands push further inland. We hold only the distant hills. Arthur already is a song and not a man, a name of glory on the wind.

  Here, there is still a peaceful orchard, where Amhar lies now beside Mordred and Arthur the King.

  Even this place will not endure against the driving Saxon wave.

  When I lie between Mordred and Amhar under the orchard grass, my granddaughter’s children, with their Roman-dark eyes, will go into the hills of the west.

  Anno Domini Nine Hundred &Ninety-One

  Two Voices

  In this year Ipswich was harried, and very soon after that Byrhtnoth the Ealdorman was slain at Maldon.

  I

  Drive the horses away, we’ll not be running from this fight. No retreat, no bridge to burn, no bridge to cross. The Danes have the island, beached ships behind them; we hold the bank across the Pante, the Blackwater.

  Drive the horses away, we’ll not be riding back to the mothers, the wives and the girls, not from this fight.

  What a forlorn hope, to dare to stand against this rising tide. Always it comes, sweeping from the east, the north. Waves of folk. First the men, then the wives, the sons, the braid-crowned daughters.

  The Romans came, and the British drank them, waves sinking into the sand. The Saxons came, and we overran the British, scattered the sands. What is Arthur now but a name in the wind?

  Cerdic and Cynric, Hengist and Horsa, land of the Angle, land of the Saxon, land of the Frisian and Jute. Ebb tide for the house of Alfred in Aethelred the unfortunate. The weak, perhaps. A brother’s murder can be difficult, though his was not the hand, nor his the will. A taint of blood to unsettle a bloody time. A misfortunate time.

  Danish kings on an English throne: Swein, Knut, Harold, Harthaknut. This awaits us. And in the end the Confessor and a jumped-up bastard planted on other shores by other Norsemen.

  Here we act as motif, foreshadow the fall of the line of Wessex.

  Drive the horses away, cast the hawk to the woods and free her, draw up and wait. We cannot come at the raiders yet.

  A few arrows fly. What if we fail?

  They come on, harry, burn, seize. What they have done before, will do again. There are no others to oppose them, no other levies to muster.

  What of the king?

  It is advised he pay them tribute for peace. And next year, more. And the year after, still more. And then it will be lands, villages, towns.

  They breed too many sons in the north. There will be no stopping them but by defeat. Theirs.

  Make them fear the island’s fame. Call forth a champion from the fogs and set a name to win respect. Arthur. Alfred. Ironside. Turn them to Ireland, to Flanders. Let them raid Sicily and carve out kingdoms. Build Novgorod. Sail to Byzantium. Sail to Iceland, Greenland, Vinland, there’s a thought. Found a kingdom for yourselves in Newfoundland. Are we less valiant than the Skraelings? A winter on the Rock worse than Greenland?

  No, our fat, green pastures call you, as they called us. The age of heroes is past.

  Then Byrhtnoth began there to draw up the warriors, rode and instructed, directed the men, how they ought to stand and hold that place, and bade that they hold their shields aright, firmly with hands, and never fear.

  Was there ever a time of heroes, or were they always such, standing in the chill, waiting. Thinking of death and women waiting?

  He across the water, Anlaf, Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, he’ll be a hero yet, in his own time, his own place. Find a crown yet, in Norway, and lose one. He’ll be an Arthur, return awaited. What are we but his youthful training? “Olaf raided in Essex,” that’s us, that’s all this waiting and fearing.

  The Vikings send a spokesman. He stands on the shore, calls across the dark water. Sent to bargain, gold for their going. First he speaks for our lord alone, then to us, the common fighting men whose families wait, then to Byrhtnoth again. But the meaning is the same in his threefold speech. Gold for peace.

  “... and this is better for you, that you buy off this battle with tribute, than that we thus bitter battle share ...”

  Peace for how long? For now, and tomorrow, and the day after? How long can we buy off a pirate? And if we buy Olaf, can we buy the Dane?

  Is peace for a fortnight worth our pride?

  “... here stands a noble earl with his company, that wants to defend this homeland, Aethelred’s country, the land of my prince, his folk, his earth. .... It seems to me too shameful that you should go to your ships with our payment, and without a fight, now that you have come thus far over our ground.”

  So then, we fight. Pride of Essex. Hero of the East Saxons. Byrhtnoth, ealdorman, noble man.

  Pride was the sin of Lucifer, the sin of the Garden, pride in the self’s own strength.

  And still the river between us, and a casual, stinging arrow. The tide ebbs, the river’s tide. We stir ourselves and watch the swimming causeway.

  Wulfstan is sent to hold it, Aelfere and Maccus beside him, we behind, and the raiders advance. Cautious. Reaching spears. They cannot pass, not while we hold the ford. And so they ask safe passage over.

  What are we, children at sport, nobles sparring? These are our fields, our homes, our people they march on.

  Then the earl began in his pride to allow too much land to the hateful people.

  We draw back. They cross unhindered, shrugging at cold water, minds ahead, stomachs tight as ours.

  Only God knows who will be able to control the battlefield.

  More glory to Him if we give up our little adv
antage? Or more glory to Byrhtnoth?

  Like a wave they come, grey helms, grey mailed shoulders, grey spear-tips glint, dip, scramble, a wave rolling ashore from the island. No hope wet feet will slow them. Are their feet ever dry in their long, low ships?

  We form the shield-wall, waiting.

  They come, the carrion-seekers. Ravens. Eagles. It is said they can hear the jingle of mail, the clash of swords, for miles. Smell the slaughter on the slightest breeze. Or it may be they follow the heathen horde. They circle, calling, waiting. Beasts of the pagan gods.

  The time was coming that fated men would fall there.

  Come, come and have done with. Why do we wait?

  II

  The shout, the roar reaching to heaven. The first launching of spears, the rushing flight, the cries. Stink of blood and ruptured bodies as we smash together.

  There was an uproar on earth.

  The named that fell, the named that did great deeds. Wulfmaer, sister’s son to Byrhtnoth, cut down. Edward the Chamberlain slew his slayer, earned our lord’s thanks.

  What of the sister, the mother? An easy grant of too much land when we had them penned, and will she count the gesture worth the price?

  She may at that. It was a bold death, a noble death. A hero’s death, to be remembered. A tribute to his remembrance, no tribute paid.

  After the nephew, the uncle. A Viking throws his spear and the earl is wounded. Byrhtnoth knocks spear from body with his shield, tears it free, and thrusts the same weapon back again. One moment’s exultation, no more. The proud Viking dies on his own point. Another feels the ealdorman’s anger.

  Then the brave man laughed, gave thanks to the Creator for the day’s work, that the Lord gave him.

  Laugh and give thanks. A Viking lets fly a spear, a fated blow, and the earl is stricken, stumbling, falling. By his side a young man, another Wulfmaer. A boy, he is nothing but a velvet-jawed boy, and his mother would that she kept him home. He draws the spear from our lord, returns it with the strength of outraged youth, that his lord should fall with his men so close about him, who ought to shield his life.

  Another Viking upon the earl. They are among us now, and he stoops, seeking plunder, bright gold of Byrhtnoth’s arm-rings, gold of the ealdorman’s sword. Too soon he gloried in another’s conquest, that gold-greedy warrior, too soon thought he heard a soul summoned to heaven, to Valhalla, Saint Michael and the Martyr Edward, Valkyries escorting. Byrhtnoth draws sword, swings, and is prevented. Lifeless sword drops to earth. There are none to stand over him.

  We are overrun.

  “I thank Thee, Lord Ruler, for all the joys that I experienced in the world. Now, mild Creator, I have greatest need, that Thou grant my soul good, so that it to Thee might travel in Thy power, Lord of Angels, to go with peace. I am suppliant to Thee that the hell-thieves will not be able to harm it.”

  Eyes to heaven, no help on earth. No strength held in reserve, no banners over the hill. None to stand over him? None to guard the cooling soulless case from stripping hands?

  None living, none. All entangled in the myriad spinning fights, hand to hand, man to man. Let the dead guard the dead, loyal thegns lie with their lord, shielding him.

  Then the heathen men hewed him and both the warriors that stood by him, Aelfnoth and Wulfmaer, both lay dead then, alongside their lord they gave up life.

  III

  And how many others, dying along the shore? To fall by your lord, there’s a way to undying memory, eternal name. If chance drags you off, then fall unnamed in other corners of the field.

  Still, it is better thus, to fall and be forgot in falling. Better not to be remembered fleeing, reviled across the ages.

  Then they turned away from battle, those that did not want to be there.

  Did any want to be there? We would rather be at home with wives, with hounds, with cattle, tending to our fields. Perhaps the thegns, the housecarls, the earl’s sworn retainers had come, battle-eager when summoned. Their duty is to fight, ours to defend our own.

  Yes, they would come, eager for spoils, for glory. Byrhtnoth’s men, his by right of fellowship, his by bread and mead and gifts of gold, by horses, hawks, and hounds. So a lord wins his men’s hearts, and so their blood is owed him. Even after his fall.

  Especially after his fall.

  There Odda’s sons were first in flight.

  Godric, Godwine and Godwig. They fled, to their father’s shame, their mother’s dishonour, Godric riding the earl’s horse. Some followed, seeing the earl retreat, thinking the day was done, not knowing he lay in the mud and the horse ran masterless under an oath-breaking thief.

  ... they did not care for war, but turned from the battle and sought the woods, fled to that fastness and saved their lives, and many more with them than was fitting, if they then deserved all the favours which he had given to them as retainers.

  But this is not an age of heroes, men do not live and die with their lords as they should. We know the Danes have bought faith and sold swords among the earls and the abbots and the bishops. It is whispered in every holding. Why else would they raid so unopposed?

  Speak truth. We are a weak and ailing nation, our spirit sapped by blood, weak as Edward slumping from his saddle in the step-mother’s yard. And wolves flock to the dying.

  Call for a champion unfettered by conscience! Lend us Arthur, Hrolf, the Maccabees! Or can we stir up heart among ourselves, are we yet men of honour, fit for freedom?

  Then there went forth proud thegns, undaunted men hastened eagerly; they all wanted one of two things, to forsake life or to avenge their beloved lord.

  We rally, close our scattered ranks, draw breath. We have not broken, not run. Fit, in the end, for lasting fame. Let infamy ride with the sons of Odda; we who fall, even the unnamed, earn here a hero’s rest. And the named?

  Let them resound through the centuries, men who fought for honour, nothing more. Give them that; it takes none from us, we who lie beside them. Aelfwine the young Mercian, none will dare decry his share. He will not shame his father, grandfather, not show his face among the lords of Mercia to be told that he broke faith.

  Then he went forth remembered to battle.

  And his example spurs us all.

  Then companions began to urge friends and comrades, that they go forth.

  Yes, give us noble speech, remind us why we fight when hope is gone. The day will yet be theirs, and theirs the shore. Free to ride inland, free to raid, no turning them now. Perhaps some one will buy them off, this time, too late for us. And yet we, we few, have greater virtue for a song. And that is fame. And fame will give us noble speech.

  Offa spoke, shook ash-spear:

  “Lo thou, Aelfwine, hast urged all thegns to danger, now that our lord lies there, the earl on the earth. For us is it needful, that each encourage the other, warriors to battle, as long as he is able to have and hold weapons, the bitter blade, the spear and good sword. Odda’s cowardly son Godric has betrayed us all by turning so very many men when he rode on that horse, on that proud horse as though he were our lord; therefore here on the field the folk was divided, the shield-wall broken. Damn him, that he here so many men put to flight!”

  Leofsunu, too, brandishing spear, recalls a vow that he would never flee battle. Now he betters it, swears to advance seeking vengeance for the death of his lord. He, too, will have no word of derision carried to his home, he will never wander lordless in dishonour. Would his wife ask him back, beseech him to run to her, walk proudly under the shame, having her man still by her side? She has his honour, stark in verse.

  He full of anger advanced, fought steadfastly, flight he scorned.

  And what of us, we who elect to stay, caught by comrades’ eyes, by women’s shame, by pride or lack of chance?

  Then Dunmere spoke, a humble freeman, brandished spear, sh
outed over all and bade that each warrior avenge Byrhtnoth:

  “He who thinks to avenge our lord on this folk cannot draw back, nor care about fear.”

  Yes, we also, moved for honour, glory, vengeance, we advanced. What more to tell? The fight was bitter. All lost: brave, grand, gesturing lord, the battle, coastal homes, all.

  Salvage some sense of worth and pray the women seek the woods.

  But could we not have barred the ford?

  And so we fight, and fall. Ashferth, a Northumbrian far from home, from kin, at stranger’s hearth to seal a peace, he will bring no dishonour to his kin when the news is taken home. Edward the Tall, rushing the Viking shieldwall, wreaking havoc in their lines, and Aetheric. And more, and more.

  Shield-rims burst and the byrnie sang some terrible song.

  Offa is dead, the bold maker of speeches, dead and mangled in the dirt. But take heed, all, he kept his vows; he died beside his friend, his lord.

  We have vowed nothing, no mead-hall boasts bind us here. Yet see where we stand and die beside them. Recall, it is our herds and homes that they defend, beside their own.

  Then were shields broken.

  Wistan fought there, Oswold and Eadwold, Godric, Aethelgar’s son ...

  That was not the Godric that fled from the battle ...

  Let that stand for us all. One battle lost among so many lost and won. Who wins in the end? William?

  Let it be. We will fight the ground over again and again, feed it with our bones, guard it with our ghosts.

  What do we leave that any recall? What prize in all this when it has been forgotten, was victory ours or no, did our wives sleep safe that night, were the Hours kept undisturbed?

  Only this, old Byrhtwold’s saying, only this to set against the terror and the horror and the glory of the day:

  “Thought must be the sterner, hearts the keener, courage the greater, as our strength lessens.”