Conqueror

XIII

As the days lengthened and the weather warmed, it was as if the world's blood was stirring. The punts brought weapons, armour, and scrap metal which, to a ringing of hammers day and night, was turned into spears, arrow-heads and coats of mail.

Arngrim had his favourite horse brought close by, a handsome beast he called Strong-and-Fleet. And he sharpened and polished his battle sword, which he loved more than the horse, Cynewulf thought, and which he had named too, after the manner of pagan warriors. A gift from his father, it was a hardened blade with an ornate wooden hilt; he called it Ironsides.

Campaigning season was coming, the long warm months of war. Even Cynewulf felt his sap rising. But he prayed that this martial excitement could be banished from his own blood, for in the country there was misery.

The Danes, bottled up by Alfred, stole seedcorn and slaughtered pregnant ewes and cows. All farmers lived close to the edge of survival, even in the best of times, and this spring famine made eyes hollow. The priests excused the folk their tithes, and at the Easter feast, the one occasion when the parishioners were allowed to share in the priests' communion bread and wine, hunger was more evident than faith. And supplicants came from across the country to Aethelingaig, starving farmers who knelt to place their heads in their lords' hands, giving themselves up as bondsmen in return for a little food.

But despite the tension, despite the misery, it was a beautiful season. The colours of the new marsh flowers, the croaking of the mating frogs, the songs of the nesting birds all seemed more vivid than before to Cynewulf. For if the war went badly this year, it was almost certain that he, Cynewulf, the centre of the whole universe, would never see spring again.

As the season advanced, the logic of the war unfolded relentlessly. Unexpected news came that ealdorman Odda had scattered the second Danish Force. Their leader, Ubba, had been killed, along with eight hundred of his men, and the rest had fled back to their ships. For the English it was the first real piece of good news since the rout of the Twelve Days.

But Alfred still had to face Guthrum.

And now the dragon stirred. Guthrum's Force left its captured fortress at Cippanhamm. Unopposed, watched fearfully by the farmers of Wessex, the Force worked its lawless way across the country, taking food, horses, slaves and women as it chose. After some weeks the Force settled again at a place called Ethandune.

Cynewulf, restless himself, accompanied Arngrim on a spying trip ordered by Alfred. Arngrim knew the land from hunting trips as a young man, and he led Cynewulf confidently along tracks over high moorland. As they climbed the views opened up, revealing rolling wooded country stretching towards Cippanhamm.

The Dane camp was at the foot of a sharp ridge. It was this ridge that gave the place its name – Ethandune, the 'waste down'. There were relics of long occupation here, Cynewulf saw: the furrowed ditches of an abandoned camp, perhaps centuries old, and the emblem of a horse cut raggedly into a hillside.

And, crouching for cover in the gorse, they could clearly see the settlement which the Danes had taken. It was another royal enclosure, smaller than Cippanhamm, but with earth fortifications and a hall. The fires of the Force sent threads of smoke into the air, and the horses, every last one of them stolen from the English, were corralled in a large paddock.

Like the English, the Danes were preparing for war. Cynewulf saw men wrestling and mock-fighting with swords and shields. And he heard laughter, songs. There was none of the nervous energy, the determined tension of Alfred's camp. To the English everything was at stake – their homes, their families, their faith, their lives. But to the Danes this was an adventure, a bloody game – the best game in the world.

Arngrim murmured, 'They are smug. That's a convenient camp, but it has the disadvantage of the low ground. And Alfred's strategy has paid off. We have kept them bottled up all winter, and they are short of reinforcements and weapons and provisions.'

'Yet they laugh.'

'Yet they laugh. They think they will beat us come what may.' Arngrim was a slab of anger, of clenched muscle, as he looked down on this scene. 'I know this land. I have hunted here, with the athelings. This is our land, won from the British with twenty generations of blood and toil. You know, I've had enough of these Danes.'

In Alfred's court there were many who agreed it was time to take the fight to the Danes. But there was intense debate about the timing of any action. Arngrim was among those who urged Alfred to move against the Danes as early as possible. The summer would bring more Danes across the ocean, and even before then the Force could retire to Mercia to graze its horses on the spring grass. The earlier Alfred struck the better.

But, defying these counsels, Alfred waited in Aethelingaig as April's warmth settled. The weapon-makers were glad of the extra time, but the warriors grew increasingly restless.

Cynewulf reflected that the crucial sixth stanza of the Menologium had referred to a war in the month of May. Perhaps Alfred was paying respect to its prophesying. But Cynewulf believed that the Menologium was only one of the strands that made up the web of decision-making in the head of this clever, deep-thinking ruler.

It was on Whit Sunday, in mid-May, that Alfred at last rode out of Aethelingaig with a score of his thegns and their followers. Cynewulf rode with the other priests. Arngrim rode Strong-and-Fleet, and wore Ironsides on his back, with his short stabbing sword and his axe at his belt.

Alfred established a new overnight camp, only a few hours' ride from the Danes' position. The camp was centred on a great old oak tree, under whose spreading branches the King set up his giving-throne. He might be a Christian King, but Alfred knew the deep old symbolism of his people, and through the day Cynewulf saw warriors pat the tree for luck, murmuring prayers to antique deities.

It was on the evening of Whit Sunday that Alfred at last summoned the ealdormen, the great landowners, from north, south, east and west, to come to him with their fyrd levies. The next morning he sat under the oak tree, with the dragon banner of Wessex fluttering over his head, and waited.

Cynewulf knew that the whole future depended on the response of the lords and the people to Alfred's call. Alfred had to face the Danes this year, come what may; even if he survived another winter his credibility as a war leader would not. But many English kings had fallen to the Northmen before. If the fyrd did not respond to his summons when he made it, if the farmers did not turn out to fight for this last scrap of England, it could surely never be summoned again.

As the morning wore on and the horizon remained empty, the tension in Alfred's camp rose inexorably, until even Cynewulf could bear it no more. But the King himself sat on his throne, and consulted with his advisors, prayed with his priests, and read his precious books.

It was after midday when the first cries went up from the sentries. 'They come! They come!'

Cynewulf rushed to see for himself. These were no Roman legions. This was the fyrd, an army of farmers, and they came in parties of three, four or five, straggling across the countryside as if showing up for a spring fair. They were armed with rusty weapons handed down since their grandfathers' time, and some carried nothing more than pitchforks and clubs. Many of the men were gaunt, half-starved, even the nobles. And yet they came, responding to the King's call, from north, south and west, from Sumorsaete, Wiltunscir, Hamptonscir – only the east did not respond, where the Danes' control was too tight.

Alfred waited on his giving-throne, the expression on his long face as calm as it had always been.

In the end, more than a thousand responded to his call.

Alfred climbed up on the seat of his throne so they could all see him and his glittering crown. The farmers before him fell silent, rows of them in their grimy earth-coloured clothes, their faces turned to him like flowers towards the sun.

Alfred spoke loudly enough for the furthest man to hear. He said simply: 'It ends here.'

He was answered by a roar.