On the evening of the next day, the king sat in warm, homely darkness, lit only by the glow of red coals. He was alone in the hut, while the few men and women of the camp busied themselves with the complex operations of their trade. The wife had slung a griddle over the low fire and put raw griddle cakes on it, telling him in her thick accent to watch them and turn them as they cooked. He sat, listening to the crackle of the fire and smelling the pleasant mix of smoke and warm bread. For the first time for many months, the king was at peace. It was a moment taken out of time, a moment when all the pressures outside balanced each other and canceled out.
Whatever happened now, Alfred thought comfortably and lazily, would be decisive. Should he fight? Should he give up and go to Rome? He no longer knew the answers. There was a numbness within where before a fire had burned. He looked up but felt no surprise when the door scraped quietly, and through it came the massive head and shoulders of the grim churl Tobba. He was no longer wearing his gold ring, but trailed his Viking ax at his side. Stooping beneath the low roof, he came over to the fire and sat down on his haunches opposite the king. For a while neither man spoke.
“How did you find me?” asked Alfred at last.
“Asked around. Got a lot of friends in these woods. Quiet people. Don’t talk much unless you knows ‘em.”
They sat a while longer. Absently, Tobba reached out and began to turn the cakes in his thick fingers, dropping them back on to the hot plate with faint hisses of steam.
“Got some news for you,” he offered.
“What?”
“Messenger come in from Alderman Odda the morning after you left. Ubbi Ragnarsson attacked. Took his fleet down channel, landed, chased off Odda and his levy. Reckoned they was only peasants, since they only ‘ad clubs and pitchforks. Chased ‘em into a hill forest by the beach, bottled ‘em up, reckoned that was it. That was a mistake. Come midnight, pouring rain, Odda bust out with all his men. Clubs and pitchforks they do all right in the dark. Killed Ubbi, lot of his men, took the Raven banner.”
Alfred felt a reluctant stir of interest, an emotion that penetrated the numbness that possessed him. But he still did not speak, only sighed as he stared into the fire. Tobba tried to catch his interest.
“The Raven banner, you know, it really does flap its wings when the Vikings are going to win, and droops them when they’re going to lose.” He grinned. “Messenger said there were some kind of arrangement on the back so you could control it. Odda’s sending it to you. Token of respect. Maybe you can use it in the next battle.”
“If there is a next battle.” The words spoken with great reluctance.
“I got an idea about that.” Tobba turned a few more cakes, as if suddenly embarrassed. “If you don’t mind hearing one from a churl, that is, well, really, a slave…”
Alfred shook his head glumly. “You will be no slave, Tobba. If I leave, you come with me. I can do at least that. I will not hand you back to Daniel and his torturers.”
“No, lord, I think you should hand me over — or the messengers won’t go out and there will be no army for you. But that will only be the start of it. I escaped before — can do it again. And there is something then that I could do. ”
For several minutes the churl spoke on, low-voiced, clumsy, not used to ordering his thoughts and speaking in this manner. But he would not be stopped. Finally the two men sat other, both in different ways awed by what they had come to.
“I think it could work,” said Alfred. “But you know what he’s going to do to you before you escape?”
“Won’t be much worse than what I’ve had to put up with all my life.”
Alfred paused one more moment. “You know, Tobba, you could just run to the Vikings. If you took them my head they’d make you a jarl in any county you wanted. Why are you on my side?”
Tobba hung his head. “To tell. words, they don’t come easy. I been, my whole life, a slave, but my father, you know, he wasn’t, and maybe my kids won’t be, if I ever have any.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “I don’t see why they should grow up talking Danish. My dad didn’t, nor my grandad. That’s all I care about.”
The door scraped again, and the burner’s woman looked in, face sharp with suspicion. “‘Ave you two forgotten them cakes? If you’ve burned them there’ll be no dinner for none of us!”
Tobba looked up, grinning. “No fear of that, missis. You got two good cooks ‘ere. We been cooking up a storm. ‘Ere—” He scooped a cake deftly off the plate and popped it hot and whole into his cavernous mouth. “Done to a turn,” he announced, blowing crumbs. “I reckon them’s the best bloody cakes ever been baked in England.”
It was a reluctant army that gathered at Edgebright’s Stone. A smaller army than Alfred had ever led before. Before it grew even smaller word arrived that the Vikings were gathering their own at Eddington. Alfred was determined to attack before the odds became even worse.
The Vikings had left their camp in the forest soon after dawn and were drawn up in the fields close by. Their berserkers, the fiercest fighters of all, were shouting curses at the enemy as they worked themselves into a rage of battle madness. But the English soldiers stood firm despite the steady rain that soaked their chain mail, and dripped from their helmets’ rims. They stirred and gripped their weapons when the wail of the lurhorns was carried by the damp air.
“They attack,” said Wulfsige, standing at his king’s right hand.
“Stand firm!” Alfred shouted above the thunder of running feet, the first crash of metal against metal as the lines met.
The English fought well, hacking at the linden shields of their enemies, holding their own. Men were wounded, dropped to their knees, fought on stabbing upwards under the pirates’ guards. While, from behind the fighting ranks, half-armed churls staggered up with the biggest boulders they could lift, and lobbed them over their companions to crash down on the attackers. There were cries of pain and rage as the stones dislodged helmets, broke collarbones, and fell to the ground to perhaps provide a tripping block for a straining foot.
Alfred stabbed out with his sword and felt it sink deep. But at the same time he saw that his lines were being forced back in the center. “Now!” he called out to Wulfsige. “Give them the signal.”
The enemy front rank shuddered and almost fell back when willing hands lifted the captured Raven banner high beside the Golden Wagon of Wessex. Now there was no flapping of jet wings to urge on the Vikings. Instead the Raven’s head was down, the wings drooped in death, stitched red drops of blood dripping down from each eye.
But the line held, fought back, pushed forward once again. While to their rear the berserkers gathered, foaming with rage and chewing the edges of their shields with passion. When they attacked together none could stand before them.
At this moment Alfred saw what his opponents could not see yet and he shouted aloud. Behind the enemy, bursting out from between the trees, came a motley, skin-draped horde. They were waving clubs, crude logs of firewood, tent poles, iron pokers, tools, and weapons of any kind. They fell on the Viking rear like a great crashing wave, striking down and destroying.
For the first and only time in his life Alfred saw a heathen berserker’s expression change from inhuman fury to amazement and then to plain uncomplicated fear.
Within a minute the battle was over as the Vikings, attacked from back and front, broke lines, tried to flee, and were struck down. Alfred had to force his way through his own men and their dancing half-human helpers to throw a shield over Guthrum as he was driven to the ground, to save his life and accept his surrender.