LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

two men pushed past him and I parried one with the sword and the other with my shield.

      Those two men were no fools. They came with their shields touching and their only ambition was to push me back against the rampart and hold me there, pinned by their shields, so that I could not use Serpent-Breath. And once they had trapped me they would let other men come to jab me with blades until I lost too much blood to stand. Those two knew how to kill me, and they came to do it.

      But I was laughing. I was laughing because I knew what they planned, and they seemed so slow and I rammed my own shield forward to crash against theirs and they thought they had trapped me because I could not hope to push two men away. They crouched behind their shields and heaved forward and I just stepped back, snatching my own shield backwards so that they stumbled forward as my resistance vanished. Their shields were slightly lowered as they stumbled and Serpent-Breath flickered like a viper’s tongue so that her bloodied tip smashed into the forehead of the man on my left. I felt his thick bone break, saw his eyes glaze, heard the crash of his dropped shield, and I swept her to the right and the second man parried. He rammed his shield at me, hoping to unbalance me, but just then there was a mighty shout from my left. ‘Christ Jesus and Alfred!’ It was Father Pyrlig, and behind him the wide bastion was now swarming with my men. ‘You damned heathen fool,’ Pyrlig shouted at me.

      I laughed. Pyrlig’s sword cut into my opponent’s arm, and Serpent-Breath beat down his shield. I remember he looked at me then. He had a fine helmet with raven wings fixed to its sides. His beard was golden, his eyes blue, and in those eyes was the knowledge of his imminent death as he tried to lift his sword with a wounded arm.

      ‘Hold tight to your sword,’ I told him. He nodded.

      Pyrlig killed him, though I did not see it. I was moving past the man to attack the remaining enemy and beside me Clapa was swinging a huge axe so violently that he was as much a danger to our side as to the enemy, but no enemy wanted to face the two of us. They were fleeing along the ramparts and the gate was ours.

      I leaned on the low outer wall and immediately stood upright because the stones shifted under my weight. The masonry was crumbling. I slapped the loose stonework and laughed aloud for joy. Sihtric grinned at me. He had a bloodied sword. ‘Any amulets, lord?’ he asked.

      ‘That one,’ I pointed to the man whose helmet was decorated with raven wings, ‘he died well, I’ll take his.’

      Sihtric stooped to find the man’s hammer-image. Beyond him Osferth was staring at the half-dozen dead men who lay in splats of blood across the stones. He was carrying a spear that had a reddened tip. ‘You killed someone?’ I asked him.

      He looked at me wide-eyed, then nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

      ‘Good,’ I said and jerked my head towards the sprawling corpses. ‘Which one?’

      ‘It wasn’t here, lord,’ he said. He seemed puzzled for a moment, then looked back at the steps we had climbed. ‘It was over there, lord.’

      ‘On the steps?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said.

      I stared at him long enough to make him uncomfortable. ‘Tell me,’ I said at last, ‘did he threaten you?’

      ‘He was an enemy, lord.’

      ‘What did he do,’ I asked, ‘wave his one crutch at you?’

      ‘He,’ Osferth began, then appeared to run out of words. He stared down at a man I had killed, then frowned. ‘Lord?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘You told us it was death to leave the shield wall.’

      I stooped to clean Serpent-Breath’s blade on a dead man’s cloak. ‘So?’

      ‘You left the shield wall, lord,’ Osferth said, almost reprovingly.

      I straightened and touched my arm rings. ‘You live,’ I told him harshly, ‘by obeying the rules. You make a reputation, boy, by breaking them. But you do not make a reputation by killing cripples.’ I spat those last words, then turned to see that Sigefrid’s men had crossed the River Fleot, but had now become aware of the commotion behind them and had stopped to stare back at the gate.

      Pyrlig appeared beside me. ‘Let’s get rid of this rag,’ he said, and I saw there was a banner hanging from the wall. Pyrlig hauled it up and showed me Sigefrid’s raven badge. ‘We’ll let them know,’ Pyrlig said, ‘that the city has a new master.’ He hauled up his mail coat and pulled out a banner that had been folded and tucked into his waistband. He shook it loose to reveal a black cross on a dull white field. ‘Praise God,’ Pyrlig said, then dropped the banner over the wall, securing it by weighting its top edge with dead men’s weapons. Now Sigefrid would know that Ludd’s Gate was lost. The Christian banner was flaunted in his face.

      Yet, for the next few moments, things were quiet. I suppose Sigefrid’s men were astonished by what had happened and were recovering from that surprise. They were no longer moving towards the new Saxon town, but were still staring back at the cross-hung gate, while inside the city groups of men gathered in the streets and gazed up at us.

      I was staring towards the new town. I could see no sign of Æthelred’s men. There was a wooden palisade cresting the low slope where the Saxon town was built and it was possible Æthelred’s troops were behind the fence that had decayed in places and was entirely missing in others.

      ‘If Æthelred doesn’t come,’ Pyrlig said softly.

      ‘Then we’re dead,’ I finished the remark for him. To my left the river slid grey as misery towards the broken bridge and distant sea. Gulls were white on the grey. Far off, on the southern bank, I could see a few hovels where smoke rose. That was Wessex. In front of me, where Sigefrid’s men remained motionless, was Mercia, while behind me, north of the river, was East Anglia.

      ‘Do we shut the gate?’ Pyrlig asked.

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘I told Steapa to leave it open.’

      ‘You did?’

      ‘We want Sigefrid to attack us,’ I said, and I thought that if Æthelred had abandoned his attack then I would die in the gate where the three kingdoms met. I still could not see Æthelred’s force, yet I was relying on my cousin’s men to give us victory. If I could tempt Sigefrid’s warriors back to the gate, and hold them there, then Æthelred could assail them from behind. That was why I had to leave the gate open, as an invitation to Sigefrid. If I had shut it then he could have used another entrance to the Roman city, and his men would not be exposed to my cousin’s assault.

      The more immediate problem was that the Danes who had stayed in the city were at last recovering from their surprise. Some were in the streets while others gathered on the walls either side of Ludd’s Gate. The walls were lower than the gate’s bastion, which meant any attack on us had to be made up the narrow stone steps which climbed from wall to bastion. Each of those steps would need five men to hold them, as would the twin stairways climbing from the street. I thought about abandoning the bastion’s top, but if the fight went badly in the archway, then the high rampart was our best refuge. ‘You’ll have twenty men,’ I told Pyrlig, ‘to hold this bastion. And you can have him as well,’ I nodded towards Osferth. I did not want Alfred’s cripple-killing son in the arch below where the fighting would be fiercest. It was down there that we would make two shield walls, one facing into the city and the other looking out towards the Fleot, and there the shield walls would clash, and there, I thought, we would die because I still could not see Æthelred’s army.

      I was tempted to run away. It would have been simple enough to have retreated the way we had come, thrusting aside the enemy in the streets. We could have taken Sigefrid’s boat, the Wave-Tamer, and used her to cross to the West Saxon bank. But I was Uhtred of Bebbanburg, stuffed full of warrior pride, and I had sworn to take Lundene. We stayed.

      Fifty of us went down the stairways and filled the gate. Twenty men faced into the city while the rest faced out towards Sigefrid. Inside the gate arch there was just room for eight men

Скачать книгу