I thrust my seax against a younger man, who glowers at me, a bandage peeking out from beneath his torn and bloodied tunic. The wounded have been called upon now. At least the Wessex ealdorman must be running short of men to protect him.
And then I catch sight of Ealdorman Wassa. He’s close to the door, urging more and more of his warriors to join the battle. I can’t see he’s having the desired success as he pulls men to his side, tunics ripping with the movement, only to push them in the direction of the fight.
The man I battle tries to stab me in the upper arm, but I avoid the blow and instead plant one into where his wound must lie, at the top of his shoulder. He howls with pain. I twist the seax tighter and tighter, feeling the linen bandage grow tauter as his muscles protest the movement before giving way. He goes down heavily, and I lift my knee to hit his nose so that the sound of his gurgling is loud in my ears.
‘Wulfheard.’ I’m desperate to get his attention as I shout his name. Someone needs to get to Ealdorman Wassa to stop him from adding more kindling to the growing contagion. But Wulfheard doesn’t heed me. I quickly realise that he, Oswy and Ealdorman Ælfstan are embroiled in their own battles.
‘Garwulf,’ I urge him, as he’s the only one not currently fighting. His face is pale beneath the splotches of blood that have landed there.
‘What?’ He focuses on me, but I think it’s difficult for him.
‘The bloody door?’ I call to him.
I don’t think he understands me.
‘Get to the door where the Wessex ealdorman is,’ I reiterate, already turning to force my way through. The Wessex warriors are in all sorts of pain and confusion, some of them I even recognise from Ecgred’s workshop. It distresses me to stab and lash out at them, knowing only too well where their injuries are.
I hurry my steps, forcing a bewildered-looking man aside, blood oozing from an open wound on his head. Garwulf might follow me, I’m not sure, and then I’m before the ealdorman.
‘You,’ he hisses at me, now recognising me. ‘Brihtwold told me you were a traitor.’ He’s fumbling with his weapons belt, no doubt seeking another weapon. Sweat drips from his forehead, but he has no wound that I can see. While he speaks to me, he forgets the Wessex warriors at the door. I notice more than one of them slip away into the darkness of night. No doubt they’ll hide until the attack is done and then attempt to escape through the river gate.
‘Not a traitor. A Mercian,’ I correct Wassa, jabbing forwards with my seax while my war axe menaces on the other side of his body. He wears no byrnie, and only the thinnest of tunics, heavily decorated with the Wessex wyvern for all it’s filthy and stained.
‘You’ll die,’ he snarls at me, spittle flying from his mouth. I notice then that his front two teeth are missing. He must have pulled the loose tooth free. All the same, he faces my coming attack with confidence.
‘Perhaps,’ I retort, swinging wide with my war axe so that I can aim for his left side. It’s a wild stroke, but his eyes watch it. While he’s distracted, I stab forwards with my seax, hoping to catch a blow on his chest or upper arm. For the time being, I can’t get to a part of his body where the first strike will be mortal unless I slash upwards into his chin and through his mouth, and my grip is all wrong to do that.
His back is up against one of the standing stone walls. ‘Help me,’ he bellows to the men wavering beyond the remains of the massive wooden door. I imagine half of it has been used for firewood.
Any moment, I expect to feel the edge of a blade at my throat, but it doesn’t come.
‘Weak bastards,’ the ealdorman glowers. I hear footsteps running away. Wassa has lost his support.
I open a line of blood just below his neck, scything from left to right, but he has his seax held firmly in front of him, blocking the passage of my axe.
‘To your lord,’ the ealdorman tries now, perhaps hoping some of the warring men will come to his aid. I believe the fighting is too intense for any one man to risk exposing himself by heading towards him.
With the flight of my seax completed, I snatch my elbow close to my body, determined to kill the ealdorman if I can. If he’s dead, the remaining Wessex warriors will have no one to command them. They’ll surrender, or at least I hope they will.
Again, I rip his tunic, leaving it to hang in tatters from his shoulders. His hairy chest is exposed in lines, beneath which I see nothing to show he’s been wounded there before.
‘To your lord.’ His cry rings hoarsely once more.
I’m getting closer and closer. My war axe arm might be compromised, but I can stab and slash with my seax, provided I don’t drop it. I begin to think I can win this, kill the ealdorman and bring the fighting to an end. I thrust my elbow upwards, but it misses his chin altogether, even as my seax stabs into his chest. The blade slices deeply, cleanly, and I pull it back, sure that this must be it, only for someone to crash into my seax arm. The blade, slick with blood, tumbles from my gloved hands. I glower at the man who’s stolen my triumph.
‘You lying piece of shit,’ Brihtwold explodes on meeting my eyes.
He’s found the time to don his byrnie and holds a seax in his right hand, a shield in the other – the one thing I don’t have.
‘I’ll kill you,’ he roars, face contorted with rage, jabbing towards me with the sharpened point of his seax. I swerve it, but only just, for the Wessex ealdorman isn’t dead, and now he aims his seax at my exposed neck. ‘I knew you were Mercian scum the moment I saw you.’
I’ve gone from nearly winning this to being entirely exposed.
I feel Brihtwold’s blade bite deep. I growl low in my throat at the pain that shoots up my right arm.
‘Kill him,’ the Wessex ealdorman urges Brihtwold.
Brihtwold’s shield jabs at my face, knocking me once more into the bleeding ealdorman. I stumble over my fallen seax. I’m down on my knees, lifting my arms to protect my head from Brihtwold’s advancing shield.
‘Garwulf,’ I roar, hoping he, at least, has seen my predicament. But I can’t rely on him. Instead, I fumble on the floor, trying to reclaim my seax, but there’s so much slick gore, it’s impossible. I can hardly see, either, as I bow low and then even lower, wanting to avoid the blow from Brihtwold’s shield boss. Damn him. I thought he was my friend, or rather, he thought I was his friend. I healed Tyrhtil for him. I did what I could to assist him, even though we were enemies.
My rage continues to build as I’m knocked about, first one way and then another. If I’m forced any lower, I’ll be lying on the floor, my clothes soaking up more and more of other men’s blood.
‘Kill him,’ the ealdorman urges Brihtwold, the pain he’s in showing in his shrill voice. It grows weaker and weaker, and yet his encouragements only grow wilder.
Damn him, and damn bloody Brihtwold.
Finally, my hand connects with my seax handle. I pull it to me. I still have my war axe, but it’s little use to me at the moment. I need the seax. Its point will aid me as nothing else can. Being so low to the ground, I can’t get any sort of momentum to swing the axe. It’ll be different with the seax.
Yet, before I can do anything, I’m crushed even lower to the ground, my knees protesting beneath my chest as some great weight adds itself to the shield pressing me down. They mean to drown me in the blood of my enemies.
Abruptly, my thoughts return to my uncle. He fought until his strength deserted him. In fact, he fought the Wessex warriors beyond all endurance. I see his pallid face, the blood sheeting down his chest, and I know I’ll not allow that to happen to me.
Gathering all of my strength, I shift my weight, fumble in the combined space to get my right booted foot beneath me. All sorts of pains make themselves known down both sides of my body. And it’s such an effort, such a struggle, but once my foot is there, I have some leverage.
I pull up against the shield with my bowed head and neck, feeling the hard iron shield boss settling into the gap between my neck and my chin. I keep my hand tight around my seax and my war axe, but if I need to, I’ll drop the war axe and rely on the seax, using the other hand to push as I try to regain my feet.
I feel the shield waver and know I’m prevailing against it. There’s more force behind me than Brihtwold. He has only his body and his hands. I have the leverage of the floor as well. And then the room to move my other foot as well. But before I can do so, a weight rests on my heel, causing the back of my leg to pulse with pain. I try to move my foot, wiggle this new weight aside, but it stays firm. As it’s coming from behind me, I can’t push it away with my hands because I can’t reach.
I know there’s nothing for it but to use my war axe.
Frantically, I swing it behind me, knowing I’ll have to release the well-worn wooden handle, but mindful that it’s a risk as I can’t see anything. I grunt around the pain. I’m not pinioned to the floor any more, but I’ve not made the progress I wanted.
Teeth gritted, eyes seeing little but legs and feet, my nose filled with the unmistakable scent of blood and piss, I swing the war axe. Immediately, I feel the weight move and hear someone else’s agonised shriek.
I snatch my foot back beneath me and swing my knee upwards, my booted foot flat on the floor. Then, still bent almost as double as Wynflæd, I thrust upwards, all of my strength in my shoulders and my neck.
The shield presses on me even more firmly, and then it doesn’t. I rear upwards, seax in my hand, the shield unwieldy in Brihtwold’s. I hold my seax to his throat. It’s all happened so quickly, I don’t even realise that Garwulf hasn’t abandoned me. He’s there as well, driving his seax in and out of the Wessex ealdorman’s body, time and time again, as shout after shout bursts from his mouth.
The noise is deafening. I can’t hear what Brihtwold says to me, although I can well imagine. His lips open and close, his pink tongue visible, snot running from his nose and into his mouth. I hold my blade steady. I don’t want to kill him, even if he meant to kill me. Tyrhtil aided the rest of the Mercians and me. If only for that reason, I’ll spare Brihtwold if he’d just stop trying to bloody kill me.
Even now, he’s swiping his seax blade close enough to my byrnie that I can feel it tugging at the padded material, as though a bird pecking at the ground. It almost tickles.
‘Put your bloody weapon down, and you’ll live,’ I bellow at him, unsure how loud my words are because of Garwulf’s screaming but desperate to have them said and understood.
And Brihtwold must hear them because fury settles in his hard eyes. I know he’ll fight me to the death, no matter that I don’t wish to kill him.
With my war axe gone, I try to snatch his weapon, force it away from me, but it keeps coming closer. As it does so, the grip on my seax becomes even more erratic. I can see the blade raising spots of blood on Brihtwold’s neck. I grit my teeth and try again.
‘Put your weapon down.’ But Brihtwold glowers once more.
‘Fuck you,’ he spits, only to still.
I gasp, seeing Frithwine’s triumphant face from behind Brihtwold, his seax blade jabbed into and out of Brihtwold’s body as blood burbles instead of words.
‘No,’ I cry. ‘No, no, no.’
But it’s too late. Brihtwold sags before me, and now he’s down on one knee. I whip my seax blade aside, not wanting to add another wound to the ones he already has, traitor tears forming in my eyes. I didn’t want this. I promised Tyrhtil. It brings me no consolation to know that I didn’t kill him.
And then Brihtwold tumbles to the ground, a damp sound as he encounters the sopping floor.
‘I finished him for you because you bloody couldn’t,’ Frithwine gloats, his face a haze of bruises, bleeding cuts and exulting triumph, no doubt keen to show me that he can kill a man just as easily as I can.
‘No, no, no,’ I moan once more, joining Brihtwold on the floor, reaching for his head to take one look at his face before it stills for evermore.
‘What?’ Garwulf has the sense to ask me. Around us, the sound of fighting has faded away. I can hear little but the ringing cry of Garwulf constantly repeating in my ears.
I gasp a sob, and then I’m on my feet, seax in my hand, going after Frithwine.
‘You bastard.’ I have him by the hair, my seax coming closer and closer.
‘What?’ he cries. ‘Did you mean to let the Wessex scum live? Did you mean to save our foe ealdorman rather than kill him? It was certainly taking you long enough.’
‘No,’ I roar, only to feel a hand covering mine, forcing the seax away from Frithwine, even though I want nothing more than to kill him for what he’s done.
‘No.’ Wulfheard’s single word startles me. His body thrums as he holds me firm. I can feel the eyes of every single Mercian warrior on me. I can see what they think of me. But how can they know?
‘It was a mistake.’ Ealdorman Ælfstan’s voice is remarkably calm. ‘These things happen. It’s a pity.’
I round on him, Wulfheard’s grip releasing just enough to allow me to do so.
‘He was my friend.’
‘No, he wasn’t. He was no Mercian.’ The words echo through the hall’s silence, which only moments ago was alive with the sound of conflict. Now, the only men who breathe are Mercian. ‘But he was your ally, I’ll allow that,’ the ealdorman concedes.
I feel all the fight leave me. Now, if it weren’t for Wulfheard, I’d be slumped on the floor, perhaps mistaken for one of the dead.
‘We need to move fast, secure the rest of the Wessex warriors before any of them can make good their mistake.’
The ealdorman babbles to the rest of the men. I don’t even note who yet lives. All I know is that I’ve let Tyrhtil down. I’ve broken my oath to him. I didn’t protect Brihtwold as I said I would.
‘Icel,’ Wulfheard snaps at me.
‘What?’ I can feel my breath rasping too quickly through my dry mouth, and my heart thuds far too loudly.
‘Can you help Oswy?’
‘What?’ I gasp once more. The words are incomprehensible to me.
‘Help Oswy.’ Wulfheard releases me and pushes me towards Oswy. He kneels on the floor, blood seeping from a wound high on his chest, his byrnie brown from lost blood, not from the leather of its construction. ‘Can you help him?’
I nod. This then is something I can do.
I rip my gloves aside and press my fingers into the wound. It’s deep but not very long. I suspect a seax has stabbed into him, hoping to find the byrnie less dense close to his collarbone.
‘Help me,’ I instruct Wulfheard. ‘I need him lying flat.’
It’s an effort. Oswy is as twisted as I was when crushed beneath the shield held by Brihtwold. The thought of him brings a hiccupping sob to the surface.
Somehow, we get Oswy onto his side, and his legs can be stretched out from there so that we can lie him flat.
I rip aside the rest of his byrnie, using my seax to stab through the material. Then I gasp. Oswy’s chest is covered in a matt of fine blond hair, and I can easily see the long-healed scars of previous wounds. One runs all the way over where his heart beats, and I can see the pinpricks where his skin was pulled tight by a needle and pig’s gut. But what concerns me more is the new wound. It’s as long as my little finger, black with blood that seems to burst forth with every beat of his heart.
I move aside, bend and cut a tunic clear from one of the dead, not heeding whether they were Mercian or from Wessex, and thrust it against the wound.
‘I need to stop the bleeding,’ I confirm. ‘Heat,’ I pronounce. The wound is deep, I’ve no pig’s gut to pull it tightly back together, but there are the remains of a fire glowing in the hearth. ‘Here,’ and I hand over my blade with the copper-etched design that already marks me permanently as a Mercian. ‘Heat it in the fire,’ I instruct Wulfheard.
He hurries to thrust the blade into the hottest part of the flames.
‘Oswy,’ I call to the warrior. His eyes are opening and closing rapidly. I fear he’ll fall into a deep sleep and will never wake. ‘Oswy,’ I snap at him. His eyes startle and meet mine. ‘Stay awake,’ I instruct him, remembering all over again how frustrating it is to wait for the blade to become hot enough to seal such a wound. If it even will.
A bloodied hand fumbles for mine, where I hold the tunic tightly against the pale skin. I grip it, offering as much reassurance as I can. The returning grip is far too weak for a man such as Oswy.
‘Hurry,’ I call to Wulfheard. I can tell that the scrap of linen is quickly becoming sodden. I daren’t risk moving it aside, thinking at least while I hold it the flow of blood is slightly contained.
‘I’m coming,’ Wulfheard shouts back to me.
‘Give it to me,’ I demand as soon as he’s close enough for me to take the blade where fire seems to play over its edges.
‘Move aside,’ Wulfheard orders me. I think to do as he says, but the moment I move my hand, blood once more pumps from the wound. I crush the linen against it and hold my hand out impatiently for the blade.
‘Give it to me,’ I repeat.
‘The handle is too hot,’ Wulfheard retorts. He wears his gloves and has the handle wrapped in a piece of cloth.
‘It hardly matters. I carry its marking anyway.’
I think he’ll refuse, but then Wulfheard thrusts it towards me. I force his hand aside, and the cloth he holds it within, and all kinds of pain thrum through my scarred hand. I ignore it.
I pull the linen aside from the wound and hold the blade tight against the ruptured skin with one swift movement. Oswy screams in pain, bucking beneath me, and I join him, my cry of pain shriller than his. And still, I hold the blade there, even when it feels as though the handle of the seax is going to erupt through the other side of my hand.
The scent of burning hair and seared skin rushes into my nostrils. But slowly, slowly, the pulsing blood stops, trickles away to almost nothing, and then there’s none. I fling the seax aside, Wulfheard skipping to avoid it as I fumble in my weapons belt. There are supplies there, and I need them. But it’s impossible with only my left hand to respond to my commands.
Frustrated, I yank the small bag aside and upend it onto the still form of Oswy. The wad of moss is before me, and I hold it against the reddened and blackened side of Oswy’s skin.
‘I need something to hold this in place,’ I announce, hoping someone will provide it. Back at the campsite, on Brute’s saddlebags, I have more supplies of moss, of honey too and yarrow, wild carrot, woodruff and the leaves of a dandelion which I could grind into a paste and apply to the wound as well. But none of those things is here, with me now. And Ecgred’s workshop is far away.
An almost clean piece of linen is flung into my hands by Frithwine. I assumed he’d gone with Ealdorman Ælfstan, but it seems not.
‘Help me,’ I demand from Wulfheard and Frithwine.
Between us, I manage to bind the moss to the wound, even as Oswy stirs and comes fully awake again, his eyes hazed with pain.
‘What did you do to me?’ he wheezes, his voice husky, tears showing in the corners of his eyes.
‘I stopped the bleeding,’ I announce, even now thinking of the woodruff, brooklime and lily I need to apply to my burn, and that’s without considering the various cuts and bruises I can now feel as the heat of battle leaves me.
‘He probably saved your life,’ Wulfheard informs him, not without some sympathy.
‘Bugger, you mean I’m indebted to the little shit?’ Oswy glowers.
‘Well, if you survive, then yes,’ Wulfheard agrees, and now his voice is hard. ‘Not, it seems, that he should have wasted his time and gained an injury for himself in the process.’
I’m unaware of Wulfheard turning my right hand, eyeing the singed flesh there, but I do feel it when someone else joins our small grouping, and nothing more sinister than a sliver of cool air ripples over my burn.
I stand then, purposefully avoiding the still body of Brihtwold on the floor, and reach for the nearest jug. I sniff its contents, and happy that it’s only cool water, I thrust my singed hand into it, shrieking as my burned skin touches the coldness. The room spins around me, my mouth sour with vomit, and if it weren’t for the stool that’s hastily placed beneath my crumbling legs, I’d hit the floor.
Dazed, I glance around at the piles of bodies. There are many more than fifty dead Wessex warriors. Immediately, my thoughts turn to Tyrhtil. What will he think of me when he discovers Brihtwold is dead?
‘Can you defend yourself?’ I’m only just aware of the conversation taking place between Wulfheard and Oswy.
‘Aye, I can.’ Oswy’s reply is terse with pain.
‘Then we leave you here, for now. Icel, come on. Frithwine as well. We need to ensure none of the Wessex warriors manages to escape. There are too few of us to linger here.’
I turn my hand in the jug, feeling the sharpness of my pain dull, but not by much.
‘I can’t use my right hand,’ I complain.
‘Then use your bloody left one.’ Wulfheard is as unrepentant as when he made me fight even while my uncle lay dying.
I stand, sway a little, and reach for another jug, sniff it, and then throw back what remains of the water in it. The sharpness of it restores me to some of my senses.
I don’t flex my burned hand. It would be agony to do that now. It’ll be agony whenever I do it, but I know not to do it now, specifically.
I scour the floor for my seax and bend to grip it. The vestiges of heat pool in my left hand, but I feel better holding it than leaving it behind. But I need something else as well, something that Brihtwold had and I didn’t. I eye his staring face, and wince at his wounds, but there’s nothing for it. I slide Brihtwold’s body aside with my foot and reach for his shield. I can’t do much with my burned hand, but I can wrap the leather thong around my wrist. At least I’ll have something with which to fight. I turn my back on Brihtwold. He hated me, in the end. I need to remember that.
And then, with Wulfheard leading, I follow him into the heart of Londinium.