Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [25]
I hurled Wasp-Sting back to our bank and snatched up a fallen axe. I have never liked fighting with an axe. The weapon is clumsy. If the first stroke fails then it takes too long to recover and an enemy can use that pause to strike, but this enemy was already beaten. The ripped banner was red with real blood now, soaked with it, and I struck the axe down again and again, beating the wide blade through mail into bone and flesh, and the smoke was choking me, and a Dane was screaming, and my men were shouting and the sun was a ball of fire in the west and the whole flat wet land was shimmering red.
We pulled back from the horror. I saw Christ’s surprisingly cheerful face being consumed by fire as the linen caught the flames. Linen burns easily, and the black stain spread across the layers of cloth. Osferth had brought still more reeds and timbers from the cottage he had pulled down and we threw them onto the small flames and watched as the fire at last found strength. Sigurd’s men had taken enough. They too pulled back and stood on the river’s far bank and watched as the fire took its grip on the bridge. We dragged four enemy corpses to our side of the bridge and we stripped them of silver chains, arm rings and enamelled belts. Sigurd had mounted his white horse and just stared at me. His sullen son, who had been kept from the fight, spat towards us. Sigurd himself said nothing.
‘Ælfadell was wrong,’ I called, but she had not been wrong. Our leader had died, maybe a second death, and the charred linen showed where he had been and where he had been consumed by fire.
I waited. It was dark before the roadway collapsed into the river, sending a sudden seethe of steam into the flame-lit air. The stone pilings that the Romans had made were scorched and still usable, but it would take hours of work to make a new roadway and, as the charred timbers floated downstream, we left.
That was a cold night.
We walked. I let the monks and priests ride because they were shivering and weary and weak, while the rest of us led the horses. Everyone wanted to rest, but I made them walk through the night, knowing that Sigurd would follow us just as soon as he could put men across the river. We walked under the bright cold stars, walked all the way past Bedanford, and only when I found a wooded hill that could serve as a place to defend did I let them stop. No fires that night. I watched the country, waiting for the Danes, but they did not come.
And next day we were home.
Three
Yule came, Yule went, and storms followed, bellowing from the North Sea to drift snow across the dead land. Father Willibald, the West Saxon priests, the Mercian twins and the singing monks were forced to stay at Buccingahamm until the weather cleared, then I gave them Cerdic and twenty spearmen to escort them safe home. They took the magic fish with them, and also Ivann, the prisoner. Alfred, if he still lived, would want to hear of Eohric’s treachery. I gave a letter for Æthelflaed with Cerdic, and on his return he promised me he had given it to one of her trusted maidservants, but he brought back no answer. ‘I wasn’t allowed to see the lady,’ Cerdic told me, ‘they’ve got her mewed up tight.’
‘Mewed up?’
‘In the palace, lord. They’re all weeping and wailing.’
‘But Alfred lived when you left?’
‘He still lived, lord, but the priests said it was only prayer keeping