Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [139]
So much, and not just those distant fires, defied understanding. Some Danes had crossed the river, but the glow of fires on the northern bank told me that most still remained in Huntandon, which was strange if they intended to move southwards. Sigelf’s men had not moved from where I had left them, which meant there was a gap between his men and the nearest Danes, and that gap was my opportunity.
I had left our horses behind, all of them tethered in woodland, and my men were on foot and carrying shields and weapons. The fires guided us, but for a long time we were so far from the nearest blaze that we could not see the ground and so we stumbled, fell, struggled, waded, and forced our way through the marsh. At least once I was up to my waist in water, the mud was clinging to my boots and the tussocks were tripping me, while startled birds screamed as they flew into the night, and that noise, I thought, must surely warn our enemies that we were on their flank, yet they seemed oblivious.
I sometimes lie awake in the long nights of old age and I think of the mad things I have done, the risks, the dice throws that challenged the gods. I remember assaulting the fort at Beamfleot, or facing Ubba, or creeping up the hill at Dunholm, yet almost none of those lunacies rivalled that cold, wet night in East Anglia. I led one hundred and thirty-four men through the winter darkness, and we were attacking between two enemy forces that together numbered at least four thousand. If we were caught, if we were challenged, if we were defeated then we would have nowhere to run and no place to hide except in our graves.
I had ordered all my Danes to be the vanguard. Men like Sihtric and Rollo, whose native tongue was Danish, men who had come to serve me after losing their lords, men who were sworn to me even though we fought against other Danes. I had seventeen such men, and to them I added my dozen Frisians. ‘When we attack,’ I had told them, ‘you shout Sigurd.’
‘Sigurd,’ one of them said.
‘Sigurd!’ I repeated. ‘Sigelf’s men must think we’re Danes.’ I gave the same instruction to my Saxons. ‘You shout Sigurd! That’s your war cry till the horn sounds. You shout and you kill, but be ready to pull back when the horn sounds.’
This was going to be a dance with death. For some reason I thought of poor Ludda, slaughtered in my service, and how he had told me that all magic is making someone think one thing while, in truth, another is happening. ‘You make them watch your right hand, lord,’ he told me once, ‘while your left is picking their purse.’
So now I would make the men of Cent believe they had been betrayed by their allies, and if the trick worked I hoped to turn them back into good men of Wessex. And if it failed then Ælfadell’s prophecy would come true and Uhtred of Bebbanburg would die in this miserable winter swamp and I would kill most of my men alongside me. And how I loved those men! On that miserable cold night as we advanced to a desperate fight they were full of enthusiasm. They trusted me as I trusted them. Together we would make reputation, we would have men in halls across Britain telling the story of our exploit. Or of our deaths. They were friends, they were oath-men, they were young, they were warriors, and with such men it might be possible to storm the gates of Asgard itself.
It seemed to take for ever to make that short journey through the marshland. I kept glancing anxiously eastwards, hoping the dawn would not break, then looking northwards, hoping the Danes would not join Sigelf’s men. As we drew closer I saw two horsemen on the road, and that took away my doubts. Messengers were travelling between the two forces. The Danes, I supposed, were waiting for the first light before they left the shelter of Huntandon’s houses and moved south, but once they did move they would march swiftly on Lundene unless we stopped them.
And then, at last, we were close to Sigelf’s fires. His men were