The Pale Horseman

'Tomorrow!' he said suddenly. His voice was high, but it carried clearly enough. 'Tomorrow we fight!

Tomorrow! The Feast of St John the Apostle!'

'Oh God,' Leofric grumbled next to me, 'up to our arsholes in more saints.'

'John the Apostle was condemned to death!' Alfred said, 'he was condemned to be boiled in oil! Yet he survived the ordeal! He was plunged into the boiling oil and he lived! He came from the cauldron a stronger man! And we shall do the same.' He paused, watching us, and no one responded, we all just gazed at him, and he must have known that his homily on Saint John was not working for he made an abrupt gesture with his right hand as if he were sweeping all the saints aside. 'And tomorrow,' he went on, 'is also a day for warriors. A day to kill your enemies. A day to make the pagans wish they had never heard of Wessex!'

He paused again, and this time there were some murmurs of agreement.

'This is our land! We fight for our homes! For our wives! For our children! We fight for Wessex!'

'We do,' someone shouted.

'And not just Wessex!' Alfred's voice was stronger now. 'We have men from Mercia, men from Northumbria, men from East Anglia!' I knew of none from East Anglia and only Beocca and I were from Northumbria, but no one seemed to care.

'We are the men of England,' Alfred shouted, 'and we fight for all Saxons.'

Silence again. The men liked what they heard, but the idea of England was in Alfred's head, not theirs. He had a dream of one country, but it was too big a dream for the army in the meadow.

'And why are the Danes here?' Alfred asked. 'They want your wives for their pleasure, your children for their slaves and your homes for their own, but they do not know us!' He said the last six words slowly, spacing them out, shouting each one distinctly. They do not know our swords,' he went on,

'they do not know our axes, our spears, our fierceness! Tomorrow we teach them! Tomorrow we kill them! Tomorrow we hack them into pieces! Tomorrow we make the ground red with their blood and make them whimper! Tomorrow we shall make them call for our mercy!'

'None!' a man called out.

‘No mercy!' Alfred shouted, and I knew he did not mean it. He would have offered every mercy to the Danes, he would have offered them the love of God and tried to reason with them, but in the last few minutes he had at last learned how to talk to warriors.

'Tomorrow,' he shouted, 'you do not fight for me! I fight for you! I fight for Wessex! I fight for your wives, for your children and your homes! Tomorrow we fight and, I swear to you on my father's grave and on my children's lives, tomorrow we shall win!'

And that started the cheering. It was not, in all honesty, a great battle speech, but it was the best Alfred ever gave and it worked. Men stamped the ground and those who carried their shields heat them with swords or spears so that the twilight was filled with a rhythmic thumping as men shouted, 'No mercy!' The sound echoed back from the hills. 'No mercy, no mercy.'

We were ready. And the Danes were ready.

That night it clouded over. The stars vanished one by one, and the thin moon was swallowed in the darkness. Sleep came hard.

I sat with Iseult who was cleaning my mail while I sharpened both swords.

'You will win tomorrow,' Iseult said in a small voice.

'You dreamed that?'

She shook her head. 'The dreams don't come since I was baptised.'

'So you made it up?'

'I have to believe it,' she said.

The stone scraped down the blades. All around me other men were sharpening weapons.

'When this is over,' I said, 'you and I will go away. We shall make a house.'

'When this is over,' she said, 'you will go north. Ever north. Back to your home.'

'Then you'll come with me.'

'Perhaps.' She heaved the mail coat to start on a new patch, scrubbing it with a scrap of fleece to make the links shine. 'I can't see my own future. It's all dark.'

'You shall be the lady of Bebbanburg,' I said, 'and I shall dress you in furs and crown you with bright silver.'

She smiled, but I saw there were tears on her face. I took it for fear. There was plenty of that in the camp that night, especially when men noticed the glow of light showing where the Danes had lit their fires in the nearby hills. We did sleep, but I was woken long before dawn by a small rain. No one slept through it, but all stirred and pulled on war gear.

We marched in the grey light. The rain came and went, spiteful and sharp, but always at our backs.

Most of us walked, using our few horses to carry shields. Osric and his men went first, for they knew the shire. Alfred had said that the men of Wiltunscir would be on the right of the battle line, and with them would be the men of Suth Seaxa. Alfred was next, leading his bodyguard that was made of all the men who had come to him in Æthelingaeg, and with him was Harald and the men of Defnascir and Thornsaeta. Burgweard and the men from Hamptonscir would also fight with Alfred, as would my cousin Ethelred from Mercia, while on the left would be the strong fyrd of Sumorsaete under Wiglaf.

Three and a half thousand men. The women came with us. Some carried their men's weapons, others had their own.

No one spoke much. It was cold that morning, and the rain made the grass slippery. Men were hungry and tired. We were all fearful.

Alfred had told me to collect fifty or so men to lead, but Leofric was unwilling to lose that many from his ranks, so I took them from Burgweard instead. I took the men who had fought with me in the Heahengel when she had been the Fyrdraca, and twenty-six of those men had come from Hamtun.

Steapa was with us, for he had taken a perverse liking to me, and I had Father Pyrlig, who was dressed as a warrior, not a priest. We were fewer than thirty men, but as we climbed past a green-mounded grave of the old folk, Æthelwold came to us. 'Alfred said I could fight with you,' he said.

'He said that?'

'He said I'm not to leave your side.'

I smiled at that. If I wanted a man by my side it would be Eadric or Cenwulf, Steapa or Pyrlig, men I could trust to keep their shields firm. 'You're not to leave my back,' I said to Æthelwold.

'Your back?'

'And in the shield wall you stay close behind me. Ready to take my place.'

He took that as an insult, 'I want to be in the front,' he insisted.

'Have you ever fought in a shield wall?'

'You know I haven't.'

'Then you don't want to be in the front,' I said, 'and besides, if Alfred dies, who'll be king?'

'Ah.' He half smiled. 'So I stay behind you?'

'You stay behind me.'

Iseult and Hild were leading my horse. 'If we lose,' I told them, 'you both get in the saddle and ride.'

'Ride where?'

'Just ride. Take the money,' I said. My silver and treasures, all I possessed, were in the horse's saddlebags, 'take it and ride with Hild.'

Hild smiled at that. She looked pale and her fair hair was plastered tight to her scalp by the rain.