Usurper, page 4
‘They’ve sailed down the Humber and into the Ouse. Their leader is Harald Sigurdsson.’
‘The Hardraada?’ Aethelric said, appalled. ‘The King of Norway?’
Rothgar nodded grimly. Aethelric crossed himself.
There was probably no warrior in Christendom more notorious, both for his innate ferocity and his vengeful nature, than Harald the Hardraada. In addition to that, if there was any Northman whose infamous exploits alone could summon a great host of adventurers to his banner, this was he.
‘His army will be vast,’ Aethelric said.
Rothgar nodded. ‘He has a whole fleet of longships. Not to mention Earl Tostig and his usual horde of mercenary scum.’
Aethelric blew out a long, unsteady breath; the arrival of Earl Tostig was to have been expected. A bitter and ruthless man, he was King Harold of England’s brother, and a former earl of Northumbria now in exile for the savagery he’d shown to his own people. For the last year, he’d sought any number of devious ways to return.
‘Do you have to go yourself, my lord?’ Aethelric asked. ‘It’s not as if you’ve anything to prove.’
Rothgar sighed. ‘You know my views on that. A true leader must always be seen on the field. I can’t ask my soldiers to do something I wouldn’t do myself.’
‘Is it not Lord Unferth’s time?’
The earl smiled grimly. ‘Unferth is a warrior through and through, but he lacks combat experience. And trust me, this will be a real fight. It’s no time to blood him with a full command. And yet, because he needs that experience, I can’t leave him behind either.’
Aethelric frowned. ‘But if both of you go…’
‘I know, I know… but even the most careful planning can be thwarted by events one never saw coming.’
The silence hung tense between them.
‘My lord,’ Aethelric said quietly, ‘Cerdic is very young to be put in charge of affairs here at Wulfbury.’
‘Not as young as King Edgar was when put in charge of the whole kingdom, and those were golden days, were they not?’
‘They were also days when the Viking menace was relatively slight.’
‘Then Cerdic’s baptism may be harder!’ the earl said forcefully, a hint of his inner angst showing itself, though just as quickly he regained control. ‘It may even be that Cerdic is all you have.’ He sighed again. ‘We can’t know what will happen in the coming weeks, Aethelric. No man can. But we must ready ourselves for all outcomes.’ He eyed the priest carefully. ‘All outcomes, you understand?’
Aethelric did, of course, even if he hardly dared think it. ‘I suppose it will do the lad good to hold some responsibility.’
‘Consider it another part of his education. Even if we all return safe and well, it won’t have been wasted.’
‘But with regard to the Minster School? Because all things considered, my lord, that still remains your second son’s best hope to make a name for himself in the world.’
By his aspect, Rothgar didn’t disagree, but he remained thoughtful as he sought to balance these rival priorities. ‘We can delay Cerdic’s start there, I imagine?’
‘Under these circumstances, I believe so, yes.’
‘A month should be sufficient to tell us what the future holds.’
‘And if it doesn’t, Lord?’
‘If it doesn’t?’ Rothgar shrugged. ‘If it doesn’t, I rather fancy there’ll be no schooling of any sort at York Minster, seeing as that is likely to be Harald Hardraada’s first target for desecration.’ He paused to mull it over. ‘Prepare some documents, if you would. We need to formalise these matters.’
Aethelric nodded and strode away, halting once before leaving the hall. He looked back. ‘My lord, I’d expected the main invasion to come from the south.’
‘It will,’ Rothgar replied. ‘This is a completely different invasion.’
* * *
‘Unferth!’ Cerdic shouted as he entered the barracks yard. ‘Unferth!’
This was actually a sub-yard reserved for Unferth’s personal hearth-troop. As such, it wasn’t a large area, though at present it was crowded with helmed and armoured figures, who, with the assistance of numerous grooms and scurrying thralls, were busy loading their war gear and other supplies onto skittish steeds. There was a chaos of neighing and shouting, hooves kicking through heaps of weapons or clashing loudly on the gritty, straw-covered earth.
‘Unferth!’ Cerdic pushed his way through.
‘Well… if it isn’t my favourite brother,’ Unferth replied.
He seemed to be in fine fettle. Like the rest of his twenty-five-strong command, he was sheathed head to foot in gleaming ring-mail. Over the top of that, he wore the uniform white surcoat and cloak of his father’s household, the former emblazoned with Earl Rothgar’s ancestral symbol, a blue boar’s head equipped with huge, curving tusks. Item by item, he too was loading his mount, though his broadsword was already buckled at his waist, his helmet hanging from his saddle. Like most of the rest of his troop, he’d shorn his blond locks down to bristles.
In the face of such martial prowess, Cerdic felt inferior simply because he was wearing civilian clothes. It left him stammering. ‘I hear… I hear the Viking you ride against is Harald Sigurdsson.’
‘Yes.’ His brother continued with the task at hand. ‘I’ve heard a rumour to this effect.’
‘Isn’t he one of the fiercest warriors in Europe?’
‘I’m sure he thinks he is.’
‘They…’ Cerdic made an effort to steady himself, to prevent his voice turning querulous. ‘They say he’s brought an armada of longships.’
‘We know all this, Lord Cerdic,’ came the voice of Redwald, Unferth’s most senior housecarl. A stout older man with hefty bushes of red-grey hair on both his head and jaw, he was fully armed and mailed, and now came forward, belting a broadsword to one hip, an axe to the other. ‘We’ve prepared accordingly.’
Cerdic felt left out as the two soldiers now conferred, Redwald updating his master on the mood and fitness of the men, and adding that his own horse, which had thrown a shoe that very morning, would be ready anon. In truth, the lad barely heard any of this. His head was still spinning with the news that Harald ‘the Hardraada’ Sigurdsson had invaded the kingdom. Not only that, but he’d landed not less than sixty miles from where they now stood, and with what, by all accounts, was a colossal force. Even without that, though, the Hardraada was a name to invoke nightmares.
After fighting at the battle of Stikelstad as a mere boy, he’d fled his native Norway with a price on his head, making his way wounded and barefoot over forest, mountain and plain to Kyiv and thence to Constantinople, where he’d joined Byzantium’s elite Varangian Guard. Rising to a senior command, he’d gone on to wage over eighty successful campaigns against Saracens and sundry rebels and corsairs, butchering every man that fell into his hands, but had later turned on his own paymasters, personally tearing the eyes from the head of Michael Kalaphates, Emperor of the Greeks, before fleeing the East with the wealth of Mikelgard stowed in his ship, a fortune he’d then used to reconquer Norway.
The Hardraada was nominally a Christian; during his time in the East, he’d supposedly built a church on the grave of Jesus Christ. But his reputation for brutality travelled far and wide. He had a wagon train of wives and concubines, and, according to rumour, whenever he sat to feast, he still followed the sign of the cross with the sign of the hammer. In Aethelric’s own words, and he was not given to exaggeration, ‘a more fearsome opponent could not be imagined’.
‘I asked Father if I could come with you,’ Cerdic blurted out. ‘But he said no.’
Unferth didn’t even look round. ‘Of course he said no.’
‘I know you don’t consider me a useful sword, Unferth, but Athelbere says I’m close.’
‘This will be an arduous campaign, Cerdic. We’ve only got room for trained and competent men. Not boys learning on the job.’
‘Don’t be offended, Lord Cerdic,’ Redwald put in. ‘You’ll note that your friend Letwold is staying behind too.’
Cerdic had noted this, though it was no consolation. Letwold’s father was a seasoned housecarl. Letwold himself was training for that status. So, even though it made sense that a lad bound for the clergy might be left behind, it seemed a wasted opportunity for someone headed to the military. But for all his liveliness, Letwold was not the most healthy lad; in winter, he sickened, and whenever he ran or rode hard, he coughed. So it was hardly a surprise.
‘You’re in the way,’ Unferth said irritably.
Cerdic stepped back to avoid being shoved. ‘You can speak to Father. Tell him I can be useful.’
Unferth still didn’t look at him. ‘That won’t change his mind.’
‘If you and Athelbere put a word in for me together—’
Unferth swung around. ‘Cerdic!’
They locked gazes and suddenly there was a sternness of purpose in the older lad’s face, rather than the usual overconfident sneer, which Cerdic had never seen before.
‘Someone must hold the fort,’ Unferth said. ‘You understand that? You’re not being left behind because you’re neither use nor ornament. Nor because your future weapons will be prayerbook and crozier. It’s because an Aelfricsson must remain here, in Wulfbury… in command. And I’m sure Father’s already told you this. Look, this is a serious war we embark on. The king himself will likely come north to fight. But even then, we can’t second-guess the outcome.’
Cerdic was shaken to hear it put in such blunt terms.
‘Well… well, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about,’ he ventured. ‘For the last two days you’ve avoided me—’
‘You didn’t hear my captain-at-arms?’ Unferth indicated Redwald, who still stood close by. ‘We heard a rumour a war was coming. We had to prepare.’
‘Then it’s all the more important we speak now. If there’s a danger that—’
Cerdic’s words dried in his throat, as if he couldn’t give voice to his fears.
‘Danger of what?’ Unferth asked him. ‘That we’ll never meet again?’ He sighed. ‘This is what I do, Cerdic.’ Half a foot of shining steel caught the sun as he part-drew his sword from its scabbard. ‘It’s my purpose, what I’m made for.’ Re-sheathing the blade, he turned terse again. ‘But you’re my brother, not my sweetheart… So don’t you dare stand weeping in a doorway when I ride off.’
‘Unferth… why are you so dismissive of me? What have I done to infuriate you?’
Unferth nodded to Redwald, who discreetly ambled away. ‘Let me think,’ the older lad said, ‘perhaps you could have spoken on my behalf a little more assertively. I mean with Father.’
Cerdic was shocked. ‘I did speak for you. I told Father you were innocent.’
‘And yet we paid a fine to that wretched girl’s family.’
Cerdic was stung. But not on his own behalf. ‘Wretched girl? You’ve been tumbling her for months, and now she’s a wretched girl?’
Unferth threw him a puzzled frown before checking his saddle straps.
‘Is that all she ever was to you?’ Cerdic asked. ‘You must have known your relationship with her would emerge at some point.’
‘Relationship?’ Unferth chuckled.
‘What if you’d got a brat in her belly?’
‘But I didn’t. You know why?’ Unferth scowled. ‘Because I’m not stupid. And now this thing has happened anyway. Here I am, going off to war, maybe facing death, and everyone thinks I’m a rapist.’
Cerdic understood his frustration about that. ‘I told Father it wasn’t rape. Even though it could have meant Eadora carrying a mark of shame for the rest of her life.’
Unferth frowned. ‘And what’s Eadora to you… just out of interest?’
‘Well… nothing.’ Cerdic shrugged. ‘She’s a ceorl. But she has feelings, she can be hurt.’
Unferth smiled, at first with disbelief, then with pity. ‘You like her, don’t you? You want her for yourself.’ He chuckled again, before reaching out and ruffling Cerdic’s hair with even more vigour than usual. ‘You lustful little pup. Well… now’s your chance. At the very least, I’ll be gone several weeks, but it might be forever. Either way, you can’t waste time. Very soon, you’ll be taking vows of chastity. Then it’ll be awkward.’
Cerdic’s cheeks burned. ‘It’s not like that…’
‘Of course not. My lust is sinful, but yours isn’t. Don’t worry, I’ve heard that before. From priests, mainly. You’re going into the right career after all.’
Cerdic was discomforted to hear such irreverence, even from Unferth, who spouted it freely. Who knew what price his brother would have to pay? But he was disquieted for himself too; it reminded him brutally that, of all the disadvantages a future in the Cloth would bestow on him, a life without any kind of female contact was the most difficult one to contend with. ‘Unferth, I…’
Unferth summoned a thrall, who hurried forward, carrying his shield.
‘Unferth,’ Cerdic said, ‘if nothing else, we should part friends.’
‘We’re hardly enemies.’
‘We shouldn’t even part as rivals.’
Unferth smiled to himself. ‘How can we not be rivals when we’re siblings?’
‘I’m serious, Unferth. Especially if this campaign will be as hard as you say.’
Unferth slung the shield onto his back and pulled his helmet into place. He glanced at his younger brother, taking in his pale features and moist eyes. ‘Christ Almighty, give me your hand!’
Cerdic did so, warily. Unferth grabbed it, clutching it in a strong, soldierly grip.
‘I know you spoke for me,’ he said. ‘And I’m grateful you did. I’m also sorry I was harsh about it… well, we’re all a little on edge.’
‘I understand,’ Cerdic replied.
‘But whatever’s said in the heat of the moment, Cerdic, we’re brothers. Kindred. That’s closer than any friendship can ever be.’
‘Which is why I need to go with you.’ Cerdic tried not to sound as if he was pleading.
Unferth broke away from him. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’
‘You and Father go off to fight… and I stay behind. How will it look?’
‘It doesn’t matter how it looks. You have a job to do.’
‘I’m leaving for the Minster School next month. What do I do then?’
‘Aethelric will resolve that, I’m sure.’
‘Damn it, Unferth! There’s a war raging… a serious one, you say. And I’ll be a novice, a nobody, locked away in a cell, studying theology…’
‘Before then you have an even more important task.’ Unferth picked up the last of his kit. Behind him, many of his carls were now mounted and moving out of the barracks yard. ‘You were man enough to admit to me that you have an eye for Eadora… so I must be man enough to admit that I do, too. More than an eye in my case.’ Briefly, his cheeks coloured, as if this was something he really hadn’t wanted to divulge. ‘She’s a village lass, yes, a ceorl… but she’s special.’ He eyed his brother again. ‘You already realise that, clearly. So, watch out for her, yes? Keep her safe.’
‘My lord!’ Redwald called, reining his horse up alongside them.
Unferth swung into the saddle. His own mount pawed the ground nervously and he wrestled to control it. ‘Do your job, Cerdic. And I’ll do mine.’
CHAPTER 5
Cerdic and Letwold watched as the housecarls gathered in front of the dragon hall.
Earl Rothgar had ninety such troops in total, but their numbers were supplemented by the carls of his leading thegns, who had ridden in from their estates all along the dale. Unferth’s twenty-five were also present. In total, they were over four hundred strong, and made an impressive sight.
The housecarls had been selected because they were among the strongest and hardiest men in the earl’s realm. Each one was taller than average, but all were now flat-bellied and huge at chest and shoulder from long hours of practice in the drill-yard and on the hewing block. Again, they all wore heavy ring-mail, their white cloaks and surcoats bearing Earl Rothgar’s Blue Boar sigil. They carried an assortment of weapons: mattocks, flails and daggers, as well as broadswords and battle-axes. Each man had a brace of throwing spears beside his saddle and wore his circular shield on his back.
‘I should be with them,’ Letwold said sullenly.
Cerdic didn’t comment, though he knew that his friend was at least as riddled with jealousy and shame as he was. Maybe more. As the only young freemen in Wulfbury remaining behind, they felt conspicuous even standing to one side of the main square. But Letwold suspected he’d been left behind because his father deemed him inadequate.
‘Father says I still have soft flab where muscle ought to be,’ he murmured, as much to himself as to Cerdic. ‘He says my skill with arms is mediocre.’
‘At least your time will come eventually,’ Cerdic replied.
Earl Rothgar and his leading thegns now came from the chapel, where Aethelric had sung a mass and heard their confessions. They too were girt for war, their ring-mail polished so that it dazzled in the noonday sun. The earl, also in his household white-and-blue, mounted his steed, named Sleipnir after Odin’s great horse, pulled up his leather coif and donned his helmet. It was elaborately engraved and embossed with gold, covering his nose and cheeks. When his Blue Boar banner was unfolded, it billowed in the breeze.
One by one, his thegns’ standard-bearers unfurled their own pennons, each one different, though Cerdic recognised them all: the Green Hawk of Easingwold, the Red Claw of Tollering, the Crossed Black Daggers of Skelthorpe.
With their overlord in front, the war-band set out along the main thoroughfare to the burh gates. They said nothing to the silent crowd of women watching, though, just before Unferth passed, he raised a gloved finger in salute to Cerdic, who could only make the vaguest gesture in response. His brother had warned him not to stand weeping like some lovelorn sweetheart, but how else were you supposed to feel when your family was heading out to war and you were not? Cerdic tried to dismiss any notion that he might never see his father or brother again, but it was impossible. What good was he doing here, seriously? Maybe he wasn’t the finished article when it came to combat, but surely he could do more to help than this? He could polish weapons, perhaps. Mind horses. Even collect spent arrows on the battlefield. Instead, though, he’d be feigning command here at the burh while in reality studying grammar.
