Sword Song (36 page)
“I’m taking you to your father,” I said. “Where else can I take you?” She did not answer because she knew there was no choice. Wyrd bi? ful ãræd. “And no one must ever know,” I went on quietly, “about you and Erik.”
Again she did not answer, but now she could not answer. She was sobbing too heavily and I held my arms around her as though I could hide her from the watching men and from the world and from the husband who awaited her.
The long oars dipped, the riverbanks closed on us, and in the west the smoke of Lundene smudged the summer sky.
As I took Æthelflaed home.
T
here is more fiction in
Sword Song
than in the previous novels about Uhtred of Bebbanburg. If Æthelflaed ever was captured by the Vikings then the chroniclers were curiously silent about the incident, so that strand of the story is my invention. What is true is that Alfred’s eldest daughter did marry Æthelred of Mercia, and there is a good deal of evidence that the marriage was not made in heaven. I suspect I have been extremely unfair to the real Æthelred, but fairness is not the historical novelist’s first duty.
The records of Alfred’s reign are comparatively rich, partly because the king was a scholar and wanted such records kept, but even so there are mysteries. We know that his forces captured London, but there is controversy over the exact year in which that city was essentially incorporated into Wessex. Legally it remained in Mercia, but Alfred was an ambitious man, and he was evidently determined to keep kingless Mercia subservient to Wessex. With the capture of Lundene he has begun the inexorable northward expansion that will eventually, after Alfred’s death, transmute the Saxon kingdom of Wessex into the land we know as England.
Much of the rest of the story is based on truth. There was a determined Viking attack on Rochester (Hrofeceastre) in Kent that ended in utter failure. That failure vindicated Alfred’s defensive policy of ringing
Wessex with burhs that were fortified towns, permanently garrisoned by the fyrd. A Viking chieftain could still invade Wessex, but few Viking armies traveled with siege equipment, and any such invasion thus risked leaving a strong enemy in its rear. The burh system was immaculately organized, a reflection, I suspect, of Alfred’s own obsession with order, and we are fortunate to possess a sixteenth-century copy of an eleventh-century copy of the original document describing the burh’s organization. The Burghal Hildage, as the document is known, prescribes how many men would be needed in each burh, and how those men were to be raised, and it reflects an extraordinary defensive effort. Ancient ruined towns were revived and ramparts rebuilt. Alfred even planned some of those towns and, to this day, if you walk the streets of Wareham in Dorset or Wallingford in Oxford you are following the streets his surveyors laid out and passing property lines that have endured for twelve centuries.
If Alfred’s defensive scheme was a brilliant success, then his first efforts at offensive warfare were less remarkable. I have no evidence that Æthelred of Mercia led the fleet that attacked the Danes in the River Stour, indeed I doubt that foray was any of Æthelred’s business, but other than that the tale is essentially true and the expedition, after its initial success, was overwhelmed by the Vikings. Nor do I have a shred of evidence that Æthelred ever subjected his young wife to the ordeal of bitter water, but anyone fascinated by such ancient and malicious sorcery can find God’s instructions for the ceremony in the Old Testament (Numbers 5).
Alfred the Great, as
Sword Song
ends, still has some years to reign, Æthelflaed of Mercia has glory to find, and Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a fictional character, though based on a real man who happens to be one of my paternal ancestors, has a long road to travel. England, in the late ninth century, is still a dream in the minds of a few visionaries. Yet dreams, as the more fortunate of my characters discover, can come true, and so Uhtred and his story will continue.
BERNARD CORNWELL
is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Saxon Tales, which include
The Last Kingdom
,
The Pale Horseman
, and
Lords of the North
, as well as the Richard Sharpe novels, the Grail Quest series, the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles, the Warlord Chronicles, and many other novels, including
Stonehenge
and
Gallows Thief
. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod.
www.bernardcornwell.net
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OOKS BY
B
ERNARD
C
ORNWELL
The Saxon Tales
THE LAST KINGDOM
THE PALE HORSEMAN
THE LORDS OF THE NORTH
The Sharpe Novels (in chronological order)
SHARPE’S TIGER
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799
SHARPE’S TRIUMPH
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803
SHARPE’S FORTRESS
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803
SHARPE’S TRAFALGAR
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805
SHARPE’S PREY
Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Copenhagen, 1807
SHARPE’S RIFLES
Richard Sharpe and the French Invasion of Galicia, January 1809
SHARPE’S HAVOC
Richard Sharpe and the Campaign in Northern Portugal, Spring 1809
SHARPE’S EAGLE
Richard Sharpe and the Talavera Campaign, July 1809
SHARPE’S GOLD
Richard Sharpe and the Destruction of Almeida, August 1810
SHARPE’S ESCAPE
Richard Sharpe and the Bussaco Campaign, 1810
SHARPE’S FURY
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Barrosa, March 1811
SHARPE’S BATTLE
Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811
SHARPE’S COMPANY
Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Badajoz, January to April 1812
SHARPE’S SWORD
Richard Sharpe and the Salamanca Campaign, June and July 1812
SHARPE’S ENEMY
Richard Sharpe and the Defense of Portugal, Christmas 1812
SHARPE’S HONOUR
Richard Sharpe and the Vitoria Campaign, February to June 1813
SHARPE’S REGIMENT
Richard Sharpe and the Invasion of France, June to November 1813
SHARPE’S SIEGE
Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814
SHARPE’S REVENGE
Richard Sharpe and the Peace of 1814
SHARPE’S WATERLOO
Richard Sharpe and the Waterloo Campaign, 15 June to 18 June 1815
SHARPE’S DEVIL
Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820–21
The Grail Quest Series
THE ARCHER’S TALE
VAGABOND
HERETIC
The Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles
REBEL
COPPERHEAD
BATTLE FLAG
THE BLOODY GROUND
The Warlord Chronicles
THE WINTER KING
ENEMY OF GOD
EXCALIBUR
Other Novels
REDCOAT
A CROWNING MERCY
STORMCHILD
SCOUNDREL
GALLOWS THIEF
STONEHENGE
Jacket Illustration © Larry Rostant
SWORD SONG
. Copyright © 2008 by Bernard Cornwell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
ePub Edition © DECEMBER 2007 ISBN: 9780061798252
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