Free The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell Page B

army,” she said.
    “Then tomorrow I shall have to persuade Aldhelm to his duty.”
    “But you have no authority over him,” Æthelflæd said.
    I patted Serpent-Breath’s hilt. “I have this.”
    “And he has five hundred men,” Æthelflæd said. “But there is one person he will obey.”
    “You?”
    “So tomorrow I ride with you,” she said.
    “Your husband will forbid it,” I answered.
    “Of course he will,” she said calmly, “but my husband won’t know. And you will do me a service, Lord Uhtred.”
    “I am ever at your service, my lady,” I said, too lightly.
    “Are you?” she asked, turning to look up into my eyes.
    I looked at her sad lovely face, and knew her question was serious. “Yes, my lady,” I said gently.
    “Then tomorrow,” she said bitterly, “kill them all. Kill all the Danes. Do that for me, Lord Uhtred,” she touched my hand with the tips of her fingers, “kill them all.”
    She had loved a Dane and she had lost him to a blade, and now she would kill them all.
    There are three spinners at the root of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, and they weave our threads, and those spinners had made a skein of purest gold for Æthelflæd’s life, but in those years they wove that bright thread into a much darker cloth. The three spinners see our future. The gift of the gods to humankind is that we cannot see where the threads will go.
    I heard songs from the Danes camped across the river.
    And tomorrow I would draw them to the old hill by the river. And there kill them.

FOUR
    Next day was a Thursday, Thor’s Day, which I took as a good omen. Alfred had once proposed renaming the days of the week, suggesting the Thursday become Maryday, or perhaps it was Haligastday, but the idea had faded like dew under the summer sun. In Christian Wessex, whether its king liked it or not, Tyr, Odin, Thor, and Frigg were still remembered each week.
    And on that Thor’s Day I was taking two hundred warriors to Fearnhamme, though more than six hundred horsemen gathered in the burh’s long street before the sun rose. There was the usual chaos. Stirrup leathers broke and men tried to find replacements, children darted between the big horses, swords were given a last sharpening, the smoke of cooking fires drifted between the houses like fog, the church bell clanged, monks chanted, and I stood on the ramparts and watched the river’s far bank.
    The Danes who had crossed to our bank the previous day had gone back before nightfall. I could see smoke from their fires rising among the trees, but the only visible enemy was a pair of sentries crouching at the river’s edge. For a moment I was tempted to abandon everything I had planned and instead lead the six hundred men across the river and let them rampage through Harald’s camp, but it was only a fleeting temptation. I assumed most of his men were in Godelmingum, and they would be well awake by the time we reached them. A swirling battle might result, but the Danes would inevitably realize their advantage in numbers and grind us to bloody shreds. I wanted to keep my promise to Æthelflæd. I wanted to kill them all.
    I made my first move when the sun rose, and I made it loudly. Horns were sounded inside Æscengum, then the northern gate was dragged open, and four hundred horsemen streamed into the fields beyond. The first riders gathered at the river bank, in clear view of the Danes, and waited while the rest of the men filed through the gate. Once all four hundred were gathered they turned west and spurred away through the trees toward the road that would eventually lead to Wintanceaster. I was still on the ramparts from where I watched the Danes gather to stare at the commotion on our bank, and I did not doubt that messengers were galloping to find Harald and inform him that the Saxon army was retreating.
    Except we were not retreating because, once among the trees, the four hundred men doubled back and reentered Æscengum by the western gate, which was out