The Great Heathen Army by H a Culley

Author:H a Culley [CULLEY, H A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orchard House Publishing
Published: 2020-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

Ϯϯϯ

We spent a week at Suindune waiting for the rest of the contingents to arrive. On the third day I was summoned to meet the king. Æthelred was nothing like his brother. Whereas Ælfred was small and looked young for his age, his brother was six inches taller, broad shouldered and, instead of the thin, wispy hair that Ælfred sported on his upper lip, the king had a thick moustache whose ends reached his chin.

Most Anglo-Saxon men favoured a moustache; it was one of the things that distinguished them from the Danes, who took pride in their beards. I was now seventeen and my facial hair had been growing for the past couple of years, but I preferred to keep my face clean-shaven so that I could pass for either Saxon or Dane.

Like Ælfred, the king had hair the colour of wheat. Whilst his younger brother had hair down to his shoulders, Æthelred’s was longer and worn in two plaits. There was a third man in the king’s tent who I hadn’t seen before. He had dark hair and a face which was scarred from his left eye to his mouth.

‘Good morning Jørren. Cyning, this is Thegn Jørren whose warband is to scout ahead of the army,’ Ælfred said by way of introduction.

‘And what will my huntsmen be doing, Ælfred? Scratching their arses? They are perfectly capable of making sure that we don’t walk into a trap,’ the dark haired man objected.

‘Yes, Pӕga,’ Ælfred said patiently, ‘but as I have already explained, Jørren had a score of young men who are mounted and well armoured. They’ve fought the Danes before and are much more mobile than our foresters and huntsmen. Their task will be to guard our flanks as we advance into Mercia whilst Jørren’s warband scout ahead of the vanguard.’

‘We are not here to bicker anew, Pӕga,’ the king said impatiently, ‘we’ve been through all this. Ælfred has faith in Jørren’s men and I can see the sense in employing mounted scouts.’

‘At least let’s have a look at these rascals before you make a final decision, cyning.’ Pӕga suggested.

I learned shortly afterwards that Pӕga was the king’s hereræswa. He was to command the vanguard and wanted his own foresters and huntsmen as pathfinders. I could understand his caution; after all, we were an unknown quantity. In truth I was surprised by Ælfred’s confidence in us.

That afternoon we paraded in front of the king’s tent. We might be young – the eldest of us was only nineteen – but we looked the part. Everyone wore a chain mail byrnie, a leather hood under a good quality steel helmet with a nose guard and each had a sword and a dagger hanging from his belt. Our horses were all rounceys; they looked well fed and had been groomed until their coats shone.

Each warrior had a quiver full of arrows and a war bow hanging from his saddle, together with an axe or a mace. We also carried a spear and had a round shield painted red and displaying a blue lion’s head slung on our backs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.