Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  The words went to his head, spurring him on, stirring his blood, so that he swung his axe high and rushed at the enemy line. He saw a man go down, blood spurting from a severed neck. It splashed on him and he struck again, blindly, not seeing whether another man fell. A spear was thrown at him, he flung up his shield to deflect it and almost at once felt a blow against his stomach, almost driving the breath from his body.

  It was chaotic hand-to-hand fighting now and the din was deafening, but even above the noise and the clash of weapons he heard Alfric shouting to him to keep his shield close. He managed to nod, though he had no breath to speak, and swung his axe again, parrying another blow at the same time, bringing it down on the head of a faceless enemy, smashing the skull within the helm. He heard Hakon panting behind him, his gonfanon flapping above his head, the embroidered axe on the blue ground there for all to see.

  They pressed forward, pushing the enemy back to the bank. Some of the Norsemen were fighting a rear guard action now while those that could fled across the bridge to join the main bulk of their army where it was forming on the higher, flatter ground on the far side. There was a sudden deafening roar as the Norwegian King’s standard was raised, the ‘Landwaster’, a great black Raven that had long been the scourge of the northern lands.

  On the west bank the invaders now faced a hopeless task as the English pressed them hard, some fell into the fast flowing river, some swam across, but many were drowned and their dead lay thick in the green rushes.

  Carving his way forward Waltheof found he was slipping in the blood of the dead and dying and the sight of a head lying at his feet, the eyes staring up at him, made his gorge rise. There was blood everywhere, men with hideous wounds, a severed arm here, a leg there and corpses turning the river red. He felt suddenly desperately sick and for a moment was afraid he was going to disgrace himself and his father’s memory by vomiting, but the moment passed. He fought down his nausea and as the last of the Norwegians slithered desperately into the water he leaned on his axe, streaming with sweat, his hands red with blood, but whole and in command of himself. He caught Thorkel’s eye and laughed suddenly, in the grip of exhilaration again so that the moment’s weakness was forgotten.

  ‘They ran,’ he said, ‘by God and His Saints, they ran!’

  ‘Aye,’ Thorkel agreed, but there was a shadowed look in his pale eyes for he had seen a man he had known in the mêlée.

  ‘Look!’ Alfric, red in the face, came up to them. ‘Look, my lord, see what is happening at the bridge. There’s a Norseman there holding it and none can pass him. Our men go down like flies under his axe.’

  Waltheof turned to follow his pointing finger and saw a giant figure, a Viking man, standing astride the narrow planks of the bridge. He had a reddish beard and his teeth showed whitely as he roared his challenge to the Saxons, laughing until his great belly shook. He was swinging his axe so swiftly and with such strength that even as Waltheof watched three men who ran at him were cut down, two headless with a single sweep of that murderous weapon, the third with an arm cut from his body and his chest smashed in. Their corpses mingled with the rest in the river.

  There was a yell of triumph from the further bank and the Norseman laughed. With a furious cry another Englishman leapt at him and Waltheof saw to his horror that it was Leofwine. He held his breath, half choking in the awful moment of suspense, but the axe-man’s blow caught the handle of Leofwine’s weapon, swept it from his hand and the Earl himself jumped clear before the Norseman could swing again.

  Waltheof let out his breath, the sweat standing on his forehead. ‘God be praised.’

  ‘Amen to that.’ Thorkel put up a hand to shade his eyes. ‘It will be a lusty fighter that can fell that axe-man!’

  Waltheof straightened, setting his axe on his shoulder. ‘I will go down.’

  Thorkel caught his arm and held it hard. ‘Then you will go to your death.’

  Waltheof laughed. ‘I am nearly as big as that fellow.’

  Alfric upheld Thorkel. ‘Maybe, my lord, but not in cunning. Leave him to an older hand.’

  Osgood said in his quiet way, ‘Yea, this is for a seasoned fighter.’ He fought himself not with an axe but with a great two-handed sword. ‘He is more my meat than yours.’

  Outy was standing beside them, his face streaked with dirt and blood, absorbed in thought. ‘I would go down to the bridge, lord,’ he said at last.

  Waltheof caught his arm. ‘Not you – Holy Cross, you are half the man’s size.’

  Outy grinned. ‘Oh aye, he would chop me in little bits before I could reach him. But I think I see a way to dislodge him.’

  Without waiting for comment on this he slid down the bank and bending low ran along the edge of the water by the rushes. He had seen a small flat-bottomed boat half-hidden there and he clambered into it, paddling it towards the bridge.

  Hakon, bearing a costrel of wine, came up to his lord and held it out. ‘What is he doing?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Waltheof kept his eyes on the boat, but he took a deep pull of the heady wine, realising how thirsty he was, and then passed it to Thorkel. ‘Ah, he’s under the bridge. Watch . . .’

  They saw Outy steady the boat with one hand against the wooden strut. He was right beneath the Norseman now and above him two more Saxons had fallen victim to the axe; even now yet another was tackling the single enemy who was proving more fearsome than the whole Norse army. There was a clash of weapons, a yell, and once again the Viking’s laugh.

  Waltheof and his companions, watching Outy, saw him stand, a spear in his hand.

  ‘Oh God,’ Thorkel whispered. He was very pale.

  Outy pushed his spear through a gap between the planks, up where the axe-man stood, up beneath his body harness, and drove it hard into his belly. He screamed, piercingly, before he fell from the bridge and into the river, upsetting Outy and the little boat.

  There was a roar of triumph from the English lines and a howl of fury from, the men on the opposite bank.

  The Saxons swept forward to pour over the bridge and Outy, scrambling out of the water and up the bank was cheered while Harold himself called out his thanks. Outy looked neither to right nor left but stumped up the bank to rejoin the men of Ryhall, wet and as laconic as ever, wiping his spear on his dripping tunic.

  ‘Well done, old Outy,’ Alfric said, ‘by God and His mother, that was well done.’

  Thorkel said only, ‘It had to be done,’ and turned away to find a fresh weapon for the shaft of his had broken. Already words were forming in his head, verses to recount the deed at the bridge.

  Waltheof said nothing. He wished he had tried his own skill against the axe-man, and it seemed a pity that none had beaten the Norwegian in fair combat, but Outy’s cunning had opened the way for the English to cross the bridge and he could not help being proud that it was one of his men who had achieved this.

  No enemy hindered their passage now. The Norwegians waited, arrayed for battle at last, on the flat ground above the far bank while the English crossed the bridge and formed up in long lines, shield to shield.

  In that pause Harold, with two of his housecarls, rode forward alone. He called on Earl Tosti and told him that the King of England offered half his kingdom if he would yield now.

  Waltheof stood rigid at the head of his men. ‘They will cut him down.’

  ‘They do not know who he is,’ Thorkel pointed out, ‘he is not carrying anything to show his rank so that only Tosti can know and surely not even he . . .’

  Tosti Godwineson, a sturdy figure in byrnie and helm, and carrying a spear and shield, stepped forward. ‘And what will he offer to the King of Norway?’ he asked in a loud voice that carried to the standing ranks.

  Harold laughed, stood high in his stirrups and shouted back, ‘Seven feet of good English soil, or as much more as he needs, being tall above the average.’

  There was an angry muttering among those of the enemy who understood his words, and a sudden surge forward.
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  Earl Tosti flung up his hand to check them. The King of Norway, huge and resplendent in chain and mail and with a sky blue mantle flowing from his massive shoulders, came to stand beside his ally, and there was a brief exchange of words between them.

  Then Tosti said, ‘Tell Harold the King that Earl Tosti would be base indeed if having given his word to the King of Norway and brought him from his own land he should then betray him.’

  There was a silence. Harold said, ‘Tosti!’

  The Earl stared back at him, his expression hard to read beneath his helm. ‘Today shall decide between my brother and myself.’

  For a moment longer they faced each other and then Harold galloped back to his own lines. A cheer rose from the front ranks which was taken up by the whole army and Waltheof roared with the rest for Harold – but he saw that the King’s face was flushed and that his eyes shone with tears.

  The battle began in earnest now. At the head of his men Waltheof went up the slope in line with Harold’s own troops, the famed housecarls whose prowess was unchallenged and whose battle cry of ‘Out! Out!’ resounded above the general uproar.

  Once more they were locked with the enemy, once more Waltheof found himself in close combat, swinging his axe, feeling the crash and impeding shock as it found its mark in helm or byrnie. Several times he was struck as a spear or axe glanced off his own harness but though bruised he was unhurt and went on over the bodies of the slain.

  A battle fever seemed to seize him now. All the world was red; there was blood and the stench of it everywhere, and he himself was spattered from head to foot with it, but there was wild excitement too and a triumphant singing in his head. He called to his men to come on, to strike for God and St Guthlac, and as he carved his way through they followed him, shouting his battle cry and taking up Alfric’s ‘For Siward’s son!’

  At last a howl was raised by the enemy. One of the few English archers had aimed an arrow at the massive figure of the Norwegian King and the arrow had found its mark in his throat. He fell by his standard, the life out of him before he reached the ground.

  Earl Tosti sprang from a hillock where he had set up his own standard and leapt astride the King’s corpse lying beneath the ‘Landwaster’, and above the din Harold, cutting his way towards his brother, shouted to him to yield.

  There was a momentary disengaging movement between the housecarls and the enemy, an almost imperceptible pause. But Earl Tosti, beside himself with rage and grief, only gave a snarl of fury and rushed headlong at his brother so that they fought together, hand to hand.

  Dusk was falling now, the sun beginning to go down behind the autumnal woods and a mist lay on the water. The fight had raged so long now that Waltheof’s right arm was an aching pain to him from wrist to shoulder, but his immense strength was coming into its own, reserves he did not know he had came to his aid and as man after man fell before his whirling axe, he heard his own followers panting behind him, calling his name, and knew now that they were his. He wanted to shout aloud his triumph, to roar his joy to them all.

  Then in the mêlée he heard a hoarse cry and saw Tosti go down beneath his brother’s axe, had a brief glimpse of Leofwine plunging forward close to Harold and with one blow striking down Tosti’s standard.

  It seemed as if the whole of the English army raised a shout of triumph and Waltheof, his attention slacking for a moment, tripped over a fallen Norseman. The man was only wounded and with sudden despairing strength he thrust upwards at Waltheof with a broken spear, driving its head deep into the fleshy part of the Earl’s thigh. For a moment Waltheof hardly realised what had happened.

  Then fierce pain shot through him. He swayed and in that unguarded moment an axe handle, hurled in the swiftly falling darkness, struck him on the side of the head. The field went yellow and black, wild figures whirled before him and then, in this last victorious surge forward, consciousness left him and he went down into the morass of mud and blood and broken bodies.

  CHAPTER 3

  Gradually out of a drowning darkness he became aware of a painful jolting, aware that he was in a saddle, half lying across the horse’s neck, aware of a blinding headache.

  In sudden inexplicable fear he cried out, ‘Who’s there?’ There was a grunt and a familiar voice answered. ‘It is only old Outy, lord. Naught to fear.’

  He gave a gasp and clung more tightly to the rough mane. He began to remember it all now, the fight, the victory, the wounded man spearing his leg, the blow on the head, and after the tense, strung emotion of the battle, he had to fight down the desire to fling his arm round Outy’s grizzled neck in an uprush of relief.

  Instead he fumbled downwards to his thigh and found that the wound had been roughly bandaged, but blood was running sluggishly down his calf.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘On the road to York. We’ll be there shortly.’ Outy was leading the horse at a walking pace and he did not pause as he answered. ‘The enemy are fled to Ricall and our men gone chasing after them. They say there will be booty for all, for the King of Norway had a great treasure.’

  ‘He is dead? And Tosti too?'

  ‘Aye. Some of Harold’s men are looking for the Earl’s body now.’

  He felt too tired to think clearly, but one thing he had to know. ‘Harold – and Earl Leofwine?’

  ‘All well,’ Outy told him laconically. ‘We have lost none of our great men. Of the fyrd, many. I saw Con of Deeping fall. As for yourself, lord, Thorkel and I got you out of the fight when you fell or you’d have been trampled to death.’

  Waltheof leaned forward to try to clasp Outy’s shoulder but he had no strength left. His wound was paining him excessively. One moment he felt very hot and then the next he was shivering with cold. Consciousness was drifting away again, but clinging to it for one more instant he muttered, ‘My axe . . .’

  Outy gave a low laugh. ‘Hakon has it safe.’

  His voice receded in an odd manner and Waltheof remembered nothing more of that ride into York.

  When he next came to himself he was lying on a pallet bed in a small chamber adjoining the King’s hall in the city and bending over him he saw the familiar features of his cousin.

  ‘Leofwine,’ he muttered. ‘Praise God you are not hurt.’

  The Earl laughed. ‘Not I. Bruised and battered and so tired I could sleep for a week, but not hurt. As for you, your wound has been dressed by that fellow, Skallason, who is as good a leech as a poet, but he says you will not be able to stand on it for a week or more.’

  Waltheof groaned. ‘I cannot lie here. I must see to my men . . .’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Leofwine laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘You have able captains in Alfric and Osgood, leave all to them. And you fought like ten men today. Everyone was talking of it at supper.’

  Waltheof felt the colour rise in his already flushed face. Coming from Leofwine the praise was all he needed.

  The King’s brother rose. ‘I must go back to Harold. We have a great victory. Norway’s young son, Prince Olaf, and the two Earls of Orkney who had been left with the ships at Ricall have surrendered to us. Harold has given them permission to go home – he was always generous to fallen enemy,’ he added proudly, and went on, ‘the Norsemen came in three hundred ships, they need only twenty-four to carry them away.’

  He gave Waltheof a swift smile and went back to the hall. The Earl lay still watching the shadows cast by the rushlight set in a sconce on the wall. It was very quiet after the noise and din of the battle, and must be quieter still out there on the field; he thought of Tosti and great Harald Sigurdson and many more lying cold and stark in the September darkness. He wondered how many of his own men had fallen and, crossing himself, prayed for the repose of their souls. In the middle of the prayer he fell asleep.

  On Sunday morning a Mass of thanksgiving was sung by Archbishop Aldred in the minster church of St Peter and later the King held a feast in his hall to celebrate the victory before
he set out on the return journey to London.

  In the intervening time since the battle the army had bound up its wounds and rested. The Norwegian treasures had been carried into York and now the dreaded ‘Landwaster’ hung from the rafters of the hall beside Earl Tosti’s torn and blood-stained banner. The King of Norway Harold had caused to be buried where he had fallen in the promised seven feet of ground, but his brother’s body he had carried back to the city and buried in hallowed ground. Traitor Tosti might have been, Leofwine told Waltheof, but he was of their blood and had fought as well as a man might.

  ‘There are only three of us left now,’ he said to his young cousin with unwonted sadness. ‘Sweyn dead on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Tosti here and Wulnoth a hostage of Duke William in Normandy. God send Harold, Gyrth and I do not cause our mother more sorrow.’