The Last Kingdom (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 1) by Cornwell Bernard

Author:Cornwell, Bernard [Cornwell, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2009-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

Six

These days, whenever Englishmen talk of the battle of Æsc’s Hill, they speak of God giving the West Saxons the victory because King Æthelred and his brother Alfred were praying when the Danes appeared.

Maybe they are right. I can well believe that Alfred was praying, but it helped that he chose his position well. His shield wall was just beyond a deep, winter-flooded ditch and the Danes had to fight their way up from that mud-bottomed trough and they died as they came, and men who would rather have been farmers than warriors beat off an assault of sword-Danes, and Alfred led the farmers, encouraged them, told them they could win, and put his faith in God. I think the ditch was the reason that he won, but he would doubtless have said that God dug the ditch.

Halfdan lost as well. He was attacking uphill, climbing a smooth gentle slope, but it was late in the day and the sun was in his men’s eyes, or so they said afterwards, and King Æthelred, like Alfred, encouraged his men so well that they launched a howling downhill attack that bit deep into Halfdan’s ranks, who became discouraged when they saw the lower army retreating from Alfred’s stubborn defence. There were no angels with fiery swords present, despite what the priests now say. At least I saw none. There was a waterlogged ditch, there was a battle, the Danes lost and destiny changed.

I did not know the Danes could lose, but at fourteen years old I learned that lesson and, for the first time I heard Saxon cheers and jeers, and something hidden in my soul stirred.

And we went back to Readingum.

There was plenty more fighting as winter turned to spring and spring to summer. New Danes came with the new year, and our ranks were thus restored, and we won all our subsequent encounters with the West Saxons, twice fighting them at Basengas in Hamptonscir, then at Mereton, which was in Wiltunscir and thus deep inside their territory, and again in Wiltunscir at Wiltun, and each time we won, which meant we held the battlefield at day’s end, but at none of those clashes did we destroy the enemy. Instead we wore each other out, fought each other to a bloody standstill, and as summer caressed the land we were no nearer conquering Wessex than we had been at Yule.

But we did manage to kill King Æthelred. That happened at Wiltun where the king received a deep axe wound to his left shoulder and, though he was hurried from the field, and though priests and monks prayed over his sickbed, and though cunning men treated him with herbs and leeches, he died after a few days.

And he left an heir, an ætheling, Æthelwold. He was Prince Æthelwold, eldest son of Æthelred, but he was not old enough to be his own master for, like me, he was only fifteen, yet even so some men proclaimed his right to be named the

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