The Pale Horseman

Book 2

by Bernard Cornwell

77 – 85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith

London W6 8JB

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales
is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2005 by Bernard Cornwell

Bernard Cornwell asserts his moral right to be identified as the
author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Libraries

ISBN 0 00 714992-1

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the
publisher, except where permitted by law

These days I look at twenty-year-olds and think they are pathetically young, scarcely
weaned from their mothers' tits, but when I was twenty I considered myself a full-grown
man. I had fathered a child, fought in the shield wall, and was loath to take orders from
anyone. In short I was arrogant, stupid and headstrong. That is why, after our victory
at Cynuit, I did the wrong thing.

We had fought the Danes beside the ocean, where the river runs from the great swamp and
the Saefern Sea slaps on a muddy shore, and there we had beaten them. We had made a great
slaughter and I, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, had done my part. In fact, more than my part, for at
the battle's end, when the great Lothbrokson, most feared of all the Danish leaders, had
cut into our shield wall with his great war axe, I had faced him, beat him and sent him to
join the einherjar, that army of the dead to feast and swive in Odin's corpse-hall.

What I should have done then, what Leofric told me to do, is to ride hard to Exanceaster
where Alfred, King of the West Saxons was besieging Guthrum. I should have arrived deep in
the night, woken the king from his sleep and laid Ubba's battle bane of the black raven and
Ubba's great war axe, its blade still stained with blood, at Alfred's feet. I should have
given the king the news that the Danish army was beaten, that the few survivors had been
taken to their dragon-headed ships, that Wessex was safe and that I, Uhtred of
Bebbanburg, had achieved all of those things. Instead I rode to find my wife and child.

At twenty years old I would rather have been ploughing Mildrith than reaping the reward
of my good fortune, and that is what I did wrong, but, looking back, I have few regrets.
Fate is inexorable, and Mildrith, though I had not wanted to marry her and though I came to
detest her, was a lovely field to plough.

So, in that late spring of the year 877, I spent the Saturday riding to Cridianton
instead of going to Alfred. I took twenty men with me and I promised Leofric that we would
be at Exanceaster by midday on Sunday and I would make certain Alfred knew we had won his
battle and saved his kingdom.

'Odda the Younger will be there by now,' Leofric warned me. Leofric was almost twice my
age, a warrior hardened by years of fighting the Danes. 'Did you hear me?' he asked when I
said nothing.

'Odda the Younger will be there by now,' he said again, 'and he's a piece of goose shit
who'll take all the credit.'

'The truth cannot be hidden,' I said loftily.

Leofric mocked that. He was a bearded squat brute of a man who should have been the
commander of Alfred's fleet, but he was not well-born and Alfred had reluctantly given
me charge of the twelve ships because I was an ealdorman, a noble, and it was only
fitting that a high-born man should command the West Saxon fleet even though it had been
much too puny to confront the massive array of Danish ships that had come to Wessex's
south coast. 'There are times,' Leofric grumbled, 'when you are an earsling.' An earsling was
something that had dropped out of a creature's backside and was one of Leofric's favourite
insults. We were friends.

'We'll see Alfred tomorrow,' I said.

'And Odda the Younger,' Leofric said patiently, 'has seen him today.'

Odda the Younger was the son of Odda the Elder who had given my wife shelter, and the
son did not like me. He did not like me because he wanted to plough Mildrith, which was
reason enough for him to dislike me. He was also, as Leofric said, a piece of goose shit,
slippery and slick, which was reason enough for me to dislike him.

'We shall see Alfred tomorrow,' I said again, and next morning we all rode to
Exanceaster, my men escorting Mildrith, our son and his nurse, and we found Alfred on the
northern side of Exanceaster where his green and white dragon banner flew above his tents.
Other banners snapped in the damp wind, a colours array of beasts, crosses, saints and
weapons announcing that the great men of Wessex were with their king. One of those banns
showed a black stag, which confirmed that Leofric had been right and that Odda the Younger
was here in south Defnascir.

Outside the camp, between its southern margin and the city walls, was a great pavilion
made of sail-cloth stretched across guyed poles, a sign that told me that Alfred, instead of
fighting Guthrum, was talking to him. They were negotiating a truce, though not on that
day for it was a Sunday and Alfred would do no work on a Sunday if he could help it. I found
him on his knees in a makeshift church made from another poled sail-cloth, and all his
nobles and thegns were arrayed behind him, and some of those men turned as they heard our
horses' hooves. Odda the Younger was one of the men who turned and I saw the apprehension
show on his narrow face.

The bishop who was conducting the service paused to let the congregation make a
response, and that gave Odda an excuse to look away from me. He was kneeling close to
Alfred, very close, suggesting that he was high in the king's favour, and I did not doubt
that he had brought the dead Ubba's raven banner and war axe to Exanceaster and claimed the
credit for the fight beside the sea.

'One day,' I said to Leofric, 'I shall slit that bastard from the crotch to the gullet
and dance on his offal.'

'You should have done it yesterday.'

A priest had been kneeling close to the altar, one of the many priests who always
accompanied Alfred, and he saw me and slid backwards as unobtrusively as he could
until he was able to stand and hurry towards me. He had red hair, a squint, a palsied left
hand and an expression of astonished joy on his ugly face.

'Uhtred,’ he called as he ran towards our horses, 'Uhtred! We thought you were dead!'

I grinned at the priest. 'Dead?'

'You were a hostage!'

I had been one of the dozen English hostages in Werham, and while the others had been
murdered by Guthrum, I had been spared because of Earl Ragnar who was a Danish war-chief
and as close to me as a brother.

'I didn't die, father,' I said to the priest, whose name was Beocca, 'and I'm surprised
you did not know that.'

'How could I know it?'

'Because I was at Cynuit, father, and Odda the Younger could have told you that I was
there and that I lived.'

I was staring at Odda as I spoke and Beocca caught the grimness in my voice.

'You were at Cynuit?' he asked nervously.

'Odda the Younger didn't tell you?'

'He said nothing.'

'Nothing!' I kicked my horse forward, forcing it between the kneeling men and thus
loser to Odda. Beocca tried to stop me, but I pushed his hand away from my bridle.
Leofric, wiser than me, held back, but I pushed the horse into the back rows of the
congregation until the press of worshippers made it impossible to advance further,
and then I stared at Odda as I spoke to Beocca.

'He didn't describe Ubba's death?' I asked.

'He says Ubba died in the shield wall,' Beocca said, his voice a hiss so that he did not
disturb the liturgy, 'and that many men contributed to his death.'

'Is that all he told you?'

'He says he faced Ubba himself,' Beocca said.

'So who do men think killed Ubba Lothbrokson?' I asked.

Beocca could sense trouble coming and he tried to calm me.

'We can talk of these things later,' he said, 'but for now, Uhtred, join us in prayer.'

He used my name rather than calling me lord because he had known me since I was a child.
Beocca, like me, was a Northumbrian, and he had been my father's priest, but when the Danes
took our country he had come to Wessex to join those Saxons who still resisted the
invaders.

'This is a time for prayer,' he insisted, 'not for quarrels.'

But I was in a mood for quarrels. 'Who do men say killed Ubba Lothbrokson?' I asked
again.

'They give thanks to God that the pagan is dead,' Beocca evaded my question, and tried
to hush my voice with frantic gestures from his palsied left hand.

'Who do you think killed Ubba?' I asked, and when Beocca did not answer, I provided the
answer for him.

'You think Odda the younger killed him?' I could see that Beocca did believe that, and
the anger surged in me.

'Ubba fought me man on man,' I said, too loudly now, 'one on one, just me and him. My
sword against his axe. And he was unwounded when the fight began, father, and at the end of
it he was dead. He had gone to his brothers in the corpse-hall.'

I was furious now and my voice had risen until I was shouting, and the distracted
congregation all turned to stare at me. The bishop, whom I recognised as the bishop of
Exanceaster, the same man who had married me to Mildrith, frowned nervously.

Only Alfred seemed unmoved by the interruption, but then, reluctantly, he stood and
turned towards me as his wife, the pinch-faced Ælswith, hissed into his ear.

'Is there any man here,' I was still shouting, 'who will deny that I, Uhtred of
Bebbanburg, killed Ubba Lothbrokson in single combat?'

There was silence. I had not intended to disrupt the service, but monstrous pride and
ungovernable rage had driven me to defiance. The faces gazed at me, the banners flapped
in the desultory wind and the small rain dripped from the edges of the sailcloth awning.
Still no one answered me, but men saw that I was staring at Odda the Younger and some looked
to him for a response, but he was struck dumb.

'Who killed Ubba?' I shouted at him.

'This is not seemly,' Alfred said angrily.

'This killed Ubba!' I declared, and I drew Serpent-Breath.

And that was my next mistake.

In the winter, while I was shut up in Werham as one of the hostages given to Guthrum, a
new law had been passed in Wessex, a law which decreed that no man other than the royal
bodyguards was to draw a weapon in the presence of the king. The law was not just to protect
Alfred, but also to prevent the quarrels between his great men becoming lethal and, by
drawing Serpent-Breath, I had unwittingly broken the law so that his household troops
were suddenly converging on me with spears and drawn swords until Alfred, red-cloaked
and bare-headed, shouted for every man to be still.

Then he walked towards me and I could see the anger on his face. He had a narrow face with
a long nose and chin, a high forehead, and a thin-lipped mouth. He normally went
clean-shaven, but he had grown a short beard that made him look older. He had not lived
thirty years yet, but looked closer to forty. He was painfully thin, and his frequent
illnesses had given his face a crabbed look. He looked more like a priest than the king of
the West Saxons, for he had the irritated, pale face of a man who spends too much time out
of the sun and poring over books, but there was an undoubted authority in his eyes. They
were very light eyes, as grey as mail, unforgiving.

'You have broken my peace,' he said, 'and offended the peace of Christ.'

I sheathed Serpent-Breath, mainly because Beocca had muttered at me to stop being a
damned fool and to put my sword away, and now the priest was tugging my right leg, trying to
make me dismount and kneel to Alfred, whom he adored.

Ælswith, Alfred's wife, was staring at me with pure scorn. 'He should be punished,' she
called out.

'You will go there,' the king said, pointing towards one of his tents, 'and wait for my
judgment.'

I had no choice but to obey, for his household troops, all of them in mail and helmets,
pressed about me and so I was taken to the tent where I dismounted and ducked inside. The
air smelled of yellowed, crushed grass. The rain pattered on the linen roof and some leaked
through onto an altar that held a crucifix and two empty candle-holders. The tent was
evidently the king's private chapel and Alfred made me wait there a long time. The
congregation dispersed, the rain ended and a watery sunlight emerged between the
clouds. A harp played somewhere, perhaps serenading Alfred and his wife as they ate. A dog
came into the tent, looked at me, lifted its leg against the altar and went out again.

The sun vanished behind cloud and more rain pattered on the canvas, then there was a
flurry at the tent's opening and two men entered.

One was Æthelwold, the king's nephew, and the man who should have inherited Wessex's
throne from his father except he had been reckoned too young and so the crown had gone to
his uncle instead. He gave me a sheepish grin, deferring to the second man who was
heavy-set, full-bearded and ten years older than Æthelwold. He introduced himself by
sneezing, then blew his nose into his hand and wiped the snot onto his leather coat.

'Call it springtime,' he grumbled, then stared at me with a truculent expression.
'Damned rain never stops. You know who I am?'

'Wulfhere,' I said, 'Ealdorman of Wiltunscir.' He was a cousin to the king and a leading
power in Wessex.

He nodded. And you know who this damn fool is?' he asked, gesturing at Æthelwold who was
holding a bundle of white cloth.

'We know each other,' I said. Æthelwold was only a month or so younger than I, and he was
fortunate, I suppose, that his Uncle Alfred was such a good Christian or else he could
have expected a knife in the night. He was much better looking than Alfred, but foolish,
flippant and usually drunk, though he appeared sober enough on that Sunday morning.

'I'm in charge of Æthelwold now,' Wulfhere said, 'and of you. And the king sent me to
punish you.'

He brooded on that for a heartbeat. 'What his wife wants me to do,' he went on, 'is pull
the guts out of your smelly arse and feed them to the pigs.' He glared at me. 'You know what
the penalty is for drawing a sword in the king's presence?'

'A fine?' I guessed.

'Death, you fool, death. They made a new law last winter.’

'How was I supposed to know?'

'But Alfred's feeling merciful,' Wulfhere ignored my question. 'So you're not to
dangle off a gallows. Not today, anyhow. But he wants your assurance you'll keep the
peace.'