Usurper, page 1
Usurper
Cover
Title Page
Praise for Usurper
Dedication
FOREWORD
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
PART TWO
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
EPILOGUE
About the Author
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Praise for Usurper
‘Finch has written an authentically blood-soaked historical epic to rank with the best’
Anthony Riches
‘An action-packed, coming-of-age, adventure set against the upheaval and battles of 1066. Finch gives us Cerdic, a troubled hero thrown into the maelstrom of events outside of his control, and we follow him breathlessly as he deals with brutal Vikings, familial rivalries, unrequited love, invading Normans and more!’
Matthew Harffy
‘The grim world of Anglo Saxon England is brought evocatively to life by master storyteller Paul Finch as he thrusts the reader deep into the cold and mud and blood of a country teetering on the brink of a devastating war for survival. Usurper is a must-read for any lover of history, capturing all the rich detail of a turbulent time and stitching it through with powerful emotion’
Mark Chadbourn
‘Usurper is an authentic and vivid depiction of life in England in 1066, and a brutal, blood-soaked thriller that will be loved by fans of Cornwell’s Last Kingdom’
Alex Gough
‘With all the brutal power of a battle-axe to the head, Finch brings 1066 to life in new and vivid ways. Packed with blistering battle scenes and believable characters, this is a superb historical novel’
Steven A. McKay
For my parents, Brian and Margaret, both of whom instilled in me an abiding fascination for the past
FOREWORD
A TALE OF TWO KINGDOMS
It’s no secret that the period of history during which England belonged to the Anglo-Saxons ended on Christmas Day, 1066, with the coronation of Duke William of Normandy as King William I, later known as William the Conqueror.
Even now, it remains one of the most tumultuous events in British history, not just because one dynasty replaced another, or because the reins of power passed from one nation to its deadly rival, but because, unofficially at least, it signalled the end of what we now call the Dark Ages, and the commencement of the Middle Ages.
There is no hard and fast rule about that of course and, doubtless, historians of other nationalities will give me an argument. But in England, at least, the arrival of William the Conqueror was transformative. The old, archaic world of earls, thegns and long-halls was superseded by a physically very different one filled with barons, knights and castles. The English language, once spoken across the whole of society, was replaced by Norman-French at the higher levels, while the imposition of harsh penalties for the pursuit of game, fowl and fish – and even for the unlicensed collection of firewood – turned a vast landscape of woods, moors and mountains into a hunting park reserved exclusively for a cruel and foreign nobility.
And yet, English civilisation did not end in 1066. A previously happy people might well have been reduced overnight to a state of ongoing pain, sorrow and impoverishment, but the hardy island race survived, and in due course adapted; and though there was much fighting, bitterness and further loss on both sides, it finally resumed a settled way of life. If the English never exactly came to admire their new masters, they were at least, in time, able to tolerate and eventually serve them.
The aim of The Wulfbury Chronicles is to tell exactly that story. Not as a schoolroom lecture, but as seen through the eyes of a single individual, whose own personal journey mirrors these events.
For this reason, the tale must be told via two books rather than one, because it’s a story of two very different kingdoms. In the first instalment, Usurper, our hero travels through a Saxon England in its death throes. In the second novel, Battle Lord, he ventures through a Norman England struggling to survive even at the very dawn of its creation.
Needless to say, a journey from light to darkness can be just as torrid as a journey from darkness to light. I therefore trust that each one of this duo of novels will be an epic in its own right. Massive sacrifices are baked in, death and violence par for the course, but only alongside endurance, redemption and, maybe, even a kind of victory.
Yes, The Wulfbury Chronicles are a two-part voyage out of necessity. But I hope it’s one that you’ll enjoy keeping me company on.
P. W. Finch, January 2023
PROLOGUE
He was lying on his back in a world of abyssal darkness. Pain transfixed every part of him. His eyes were gummy orbs trapped under lids sealed shut by a gritty, sticky substance that coated his entire face. But his ears worked at least, because as he lay there, shifting about awkwardly, trying by instinct to twitch life back into his deadened limbs, he heard voices approaching, speaking a language he didn’t understand and yet somehow reviled.
Sluggishly, sick to his guts, hands weak and shaking, he reached up and scraped the filth from his eyes. And found himself gazing into a beaked, feathered visage no more than an inch from his own.
It was sleek and black, its beak curved, bloodied like an axe, its eyes unblinking blots of reflected flame. The boldest raven he had ever seen, it filled his entire vision as it sat there on his chest, peering down at him for what seemed an age, before suddenly lofting upward on its tar-black wings. Circling lazily, it finally perched on the bough of a nearby tree that was twisted and leafless, bristling with arrows, gashed by blades, spattered crimson in the flickering firelight.
He couldn’t make sense of it, nor of anything else. That firelight was dim, cast by many sources, though most were distant from him and moving slowly back and forth. It was sufficient, though, to reveal the heaps of men lying hacked and dismembered on all sides. The sight might have jolted him with horror had he not by some means expected it; had he not already known they were there, smelled their opened innards, sensed their gaping mouths, slithered in the lake of blood they’d shed as it mingled and clotted with his own.
The voices grew louder. They were coming this way.
He turned his head leftward, though it hurt his neck abominably. Three hefty figures approached in a pall of smoky torchlight. Their mail clinked, their leather creaked, but he saw that they’d removed their helmets. One of them carried a spear, the others were armed only with staffs. They wielded these implements liberally as they shoved and rummaged through the gory, butchered remains.
He risked a glance to the right, and saw other lights in the darkness, heard more foreign voices. One of them laughed cruelly.
He snapped his eyes closed as the first group came upon him. The haft of a quarterstaff tapped against his ribs, or rather against the ring-coat that clad them.
His heart sank.
Even in this abattoir from Hell, they’d spotted the quality of his armour…
PART ONE
THE DARK VEIL
CHAPTER 1
The two warriors faced each other across a stretch of sun-dried grass. Nearby, the grove of apple trees called Gonwyn’s Orchard basked in the afternoon heat, the River Swale rippling close by. It was a scenic spot, but the warriors saw nothing of this. They were tightly focused, clad in ring-mail coats and helmets with face-guards, carrying broadswords and circular shields.
The weapons were nicked and scarred from extensive use in many bouts, though when the twosome finally joined, few contests could have been as fierce. The blades sang together with fury, sparks flashing, splinters flying as blows hewed into linden wood. The taller fighter soon had the better of it. They clashed repeatedly, grunting and gasping as they smote at each other, breaking apart to get their breath but always re-engaging, the taller one’s strokes increasingly swifter, surer, harder. With a deft uppercut and a vicious backhand, he sent his opponent’s weapon twirling from his grasp.
A third fellow stood by, watching. He was young, no more than seventeen, with golden hair and a compact body. He bore no arms and wore only a loose tunic, breeches and felt boots. He bit his lip nervously as the shorter combatant scrambled after his sword, retrieved it and spun straight back into battle, striking hard at his opposite number’s helmet, at his torso, even at his legs, but always finding only his shield or his deflecting blade. He cursed as he swept down with a high slash, only to be parried with ease, then as he aimed for the neck and shoulder joint, to be effortlessly blocked, edged steel clattering his nosepiece, his blade again sent spinning.
‘What troubles me, Cerdic,’ the taller of the two sneered, ‘is that you’re built for this. You’re no weakling. You have the physical stature, and yet you never seem to improve.’
‘Bastard,’ his opponent, the one called Cerdic, muttered, breathing hard in the dusty air.
He wafted his sword back and forth as he returned to the fray. They fought even more fiercely, dancing around each other, steel shimmering, shields shuddering with each biting impact, and now, the taller one, whose name was Unferth, wasn’t quite as quick to disarm his adversary.
They broke apart again, gasping, streaming sweat.
‘That’s better,’ Unferth said. ‘But if I go in more brutally…’ He drove at his opponent with a sudden frenzy of cross-cuts and overhead hacks, Cerdic’s blade knocked down with such force that it stood quivering in the grass. Unferth pushed him against the nearest tree, sword-tip at his pulsing throat. ‘It ends swiftly, does it not?’ He stepped back, pulled off his helmet and his leather coif and shook out his sweaty blond mane. ‘Which, somehow, is even more pathetic.’ He seemed saddened as well as frustrated. ‘You can handle it when I’m playing, but when it’s real…?’
Stung by the dismissive tone, Cerdic flung off his own helmet and swooped up his blade. It was not untrue that he had the stature for swordplay. Unferth stood an impressive six foot two, but Cerdic, his younger brother, was six feet himself, and though not massive in shape, still lean and agile.
He banged his sword on the iron rim of his shield. Unferth, who’d sheathed his own weapon and turned away, glanced back.
‘What… I’ve upset you now? Called your manhood into question?’ He drew his steel again. ‘Then show me. Put me right.’
Cerdic attacked. Unferth fended him off, then counter-attacked. They circled, swords ringing. Before Cerdic’s, inevitably, was dashed from his hand.
‘The sad truth,’ Unferth panted, tossing his shield aside, then reaching out and ruffling Cerdic’s hair in the manner he knew had annoyed him since he was a child; Cerdic slapped his hand away. ‘The sad truth… is that I think you’ve learned as much as you’re capable of.’
The lad watching, Letwold, now spoke. ‘How much does he need to learn if he’s going into the Church?’
Unferth snorted. ‘You think churchmen don’t fight? It’s plain as mud that you young fools have never seen a battle.’
‘Neither have you,’ Cerdic replied irritably.
Unferth bared his teeth. ‘I’ve ridden to war, you little whelp!’
‘There was no fighting.’
‘Whether I can hold my own on the field of honour is not in question here.’
‘Most priests use maces, anyway,’ Letwold said. ‘Don’t they? Cudgel their enemies?’
‘That’s because most priests are of ignoble blood,’ Unferth replied. ‘Use a mace, you might as well use a lump of stone. And hard though I am on my little brother, he’s too good for that.’
‘You see, Cerdic,’ Letwold grinned. ‘There’s hope for you yet.’
‘Let’s not overstate it,’ Unferth said, though something else now distracted him.
For several minutes, a girl had been approaching along the nearby valley road. Now, almost level with them, she diverted toward the orchard. Her name was Eadora, and she was sister to the blacksmith’s boy in the village of Brackley-on-the-Water. At eighteen, she was already a vision of loveliness: pink-lipped, with blue-near-violet eyes, hair that hung in long flaxen ropes, and a shape like Freyja herself. She saw them watching, and puckered her lips in a small, coy smile as she unslung the basket from her back, hitched the hem of her kirtle to her left hip, exposing a smooth brown leg, and commenced climbing.
Unferth slid his sword into its scabbard again. ‘There ends today’s lesson.’
‘I’ve time yet,’ Cerdic said, though he too was mesmerised by the comely young creature now moving lithely between the boughs as she purposely picked only the rosiest apples.
‘No, that’s it for today.’ Unferth unbuckled his ring-mail as he walked slowly over there.
‘Aye,’ Letwold agreed, looking at Cerdic. ‘That’s it for today. For you at least.’
Cerdic watched as his brother halted under the first apple tree, clasping Eadora’s waist to help her down again. They spoke together out of earshot of the younger two, the peasant girl uncommonly relaxed in the company of a young lord-in-waiting, even giggling at some jest he made. Arm-in-arm, the basket and apples forgotten, they ambled away under the trees.
Cerdic grabbed up his helmet, brushing grass seeds off it, unbuckled his sword-belt and with quick, jerking movements, opened the front of his ring-coat.
‘Earl Rothgar’s second son, and she doesn’t even know I exist,’ he grumbled.
‘That’s because the earl’s first son got there ahead of you,’ Letwold replied.
It wasn’t an exaggeration. Unferth had been bedding the village beauty for most of that summer, in barns and stables, out among the hayricks. Anywhere, in truth, where they could find privacy.
‘Besides,’ Letwold said, ‘should you really be thinking that way?’
Cerdic sighed as they walked back along the road, his war gear bundled under his arm. ‘I suppose not.’
In the early part of his vocational instruction, Aethelric, his tutor, had advised him that it wasn’t in itself sinful to look on a woman and desire her. It was part of Nature, and one had no control over that. However, one was expected to exercise restraint, and apparently, when temptation came, there was power and solace to be found in prayer. For his part, Cerdic wasn’t so sure. He was a God-fearing lad and he prayed a lot, for all sorts of things. But as yet, there’d been no divine intervention to avert his lusty gaze from Eadora. Partly, he suspected, this was because he didn’t pray very hard for it.
‘We can all dream,’ he said.
‘Unferth’s right about the training,’ Letwold replied. ‘I mean… that you may still need it.’
Cerdic threw a lingering glance backward. Already, Unferth and Eadora had vanished from view, blending into the orchard’s green, shadowy heart. The lads trudged on. Beside them, the river ran clear and shallow, gurgling over rounded stones. Brown trout darted beneath the glinting surface. Above it, swarms of midges danced like specks of gold.
‘Is he right that I’m a useless clod?’ Cerdic wondered. ‘That I’d be better with a darning needle or cooking spoon in my hand than a sword?’
‘He didn’t quite say that.’
‘And what do you think? You’ll be a housecarl at some point.’
Letwold shrugged. ‘I think you held your own well. Unferth’s a dangerous opponent. He knows his business with sword and axe. He’s strong, and he uses that strength.’
‘He’s used it all my life against me.’
‘That’s what older brothers do. It’s part of their job.’
‘Some throw themselves into it more than others.’
Letwold shrugged again. ‘Does Athelbere comment on your progress?’
‘He says I’m “doing well”.’
They mulled that over. Athelbere, Earl Rothgar’s hoary house-marshal, wasn’t just an experienced campaigner, but a stern taskmaster who wasn’t for wasting words. If he’d said that Lord Cerdic was ‘doing well’, he’d have meant it truthfully. But the fact he’d added no more than that told its own story.
‘He doesn’t concentrate on me one-to-one, the way he did with Unferth,’ Cerdic said.
‘Because you’re bound for the priesthood?’
‘What else?’
It was a painful truth. Athelbere even preferred it when Cerdic sparred with wooden weapons rather than actual steel. Hence this afternoon’s session being held by Gonwyn’s Orchard, far from the burh and the drill-yard. Sparring with real blades led to injuries and death. Not regularly, but it was a risk the earl’s housecarls had to take every day because that was what they’d face in real war. But it wasn’t a risk the marshal of the house deemed necessary for Cerdic, because the lad would shortly be attending the Minster School at York. Though if, in due course, he rose to prominence in the Cloth he would indeed need a basic knowledge of combat, it would never be his actual profession.
‘Are we for The Corn Mother?’ Letwold asked, rubbing his hands together. There were sounds of celebration just ahead of them. ‘There’re lots of luscious lasses around when there’s no work to be done, and on a day like today the drink will be flowing. There’ll be dancing, the dancing might turn to tumbling… you know what I mean?’
