Chapter 1: Winter of the Danes

Author's Note - The Winter of the Danes

Ivar the Boneless, the most famous Viking of his age, disappears from History in the winter of 871/872 AD. History does not relate the origins of his soubriquet. I would like to think that the rough humour of the Vikings could have been referring to impotence. There is absolutely no historical basis for suggesting he was paedophile.

His brother, Halfdan, left England in about 876 AD and was replaced by even more ambitious marauders. Like Ivar and Halfdan, Asser, King Alfred's friend and biographer, is an historical reality as indeed are Alfred himself, Æthelred his brother and Archbishop Wulfhere. All others are characters of my own imagining.

The Anglo-Saxons used the term 'Danes' to cover all their Scandinavian invaders, whether from Denmark, Norway or the Baltic.

I have used the mystery of Ivar's end as a device for this story. I have tried to remain faithful to history but have also used a certain amount of licence. Likewise, I have used Anglo-Saxon spellings and place names - Thetford becomes Theodford. Waneting is modern-day Wantage, Gyldeford is Guildford, Fullanhamm is Fulham, now firmly a part of London. Sceaftensbyrig is Shaftesbury in Dorset, Windlesora is Windsor and Wintanceaster is modern-day Winchester, where King Alfred's statue stands guard outside the cathedral. I have used these styles simply to add 'atmosphere' and to show what a clever bastard I am.

If you want to know more about this period I recommend 'Anglo Saxon England' by Sir Frank Stenton. It may be a few years old now and some sections might bear revision, but it is still the best work on the English Dark Ages for both clarity and readability.

(N.B. Æthelred is a popular Anglo-Saxon name meaning 'Good Counsel ' The most well known to bear this name is, of course Æthelred Unrede. Not 'unready' in the sense of unprepared but 'unrede' -' no counsel'; a harsh but accurate contemporary pun on the King's name. This Æthelred lived considerably later and should not be confused with Alfred's unfortunate brother)

Winter of the Danes, AD 871/872

"The King has summoned the Fyrd to meet at Reading". My father's voice held an edge of resignation. It was the third time that year that King Ælfred had called out the Shire levies. The House Ceorls muttered among themselves. This must mean the Danes had broken the peace we had fought so hard for, starting at Wealingaford that May. Wealingaford had been my first battle.

I had stood in the shield wall that day beside my father as the Danes charged up the ridge. We were Ælfred's sworn men. I could smell the fear, my own among it. The enemy looked huge. Out in front were the naked madmen; those in whom the fighting madness raged to the point they went 'bare-sark', as the Danes say, without clothes. Their skaalds were singing some of kind of battle hymn. They were all noise and frightfulness.

That wasn't Ælfred's way. We stood shoulder to shoulder. The King's House Ceorls started the beat, a steady drumming of the great axes upon our shields rising to a climax when we would shout as one, " God Almighty!!" Then the drumming would subside before rising to another crescendo and another shout. Shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall. That is how the men of Wessex fight.

I killed my first man that day, I was sixteen years old and I killed and killed. They broke on our wall like the tide dashing upon the rocks; like the rocks we stood. The great axes smote them. The golden dragon banner flew above our heads; we roared our war-shout in defiant unison, "God Almighty!!!!" I have heard old warriors say that there is nothing more frightening than to charge a shield wall. I hope I never have to do it. I was frightened enough to stand amid the carnage, seeing the severed limbs fly and the bright blood's gouting.

The pagans came again and again and died for their pains and their courage. Ivar, the one the men call 'The Boneless' led them on. His brother, Halfdan, was their chief but I never saw him on the field that day. Ivar dressed always in black. He wore a necklace of men's knucklebones, sheathed in silver. They say he adopted his garb the day his father, Ragnar Lothbrok, died in Jorvik, betrayed and friendless, hurled into a pit of serpents. Old 'hairy britches' was a savage man and he came to a savage end but he could never compete in cruelty with Ivar, his son.

We chased them back to the river that day. There were eight more battles to follow, all bloody, none conclusive. We came to Terms. Ælfred granted them the King's Peace if they stayed away from Wessex so they turned north into Mercia and headed for the Five Boroughs, to winter at Leicester, as we thought. Now it appeared they had broken out and we were summoned to Reading to answer Ælfred's call. There would be no peace that year and no marriage for me while the Danes were abroad.

After Wealingaford, my father had called on Ædwig, Thegn at Warmynster, and arranged my betrothal to Elfgirda, his youngest daughter. She was almost fifteen and ripe for marriage and would bring a handsome dowry. I didn't care; I loved her. She was slight and gentle but had a merry spirit in her cornflower eyes. I had known her since we were small. My father's lands in the Sceaftensbyrig Hundred ran by her father's. They were both men of rank, had been House Ceorls to Æthelred, Ælfred's elder brother and King before. When Æthelred had died of pleurisy, Ælfred had released them with honour, preferring younger and, it must be said, more Godly men. Both our fathers had been baptised but the seed of Christianity never fell in more barren soil than those two. They feared no man and no man's Gods, but taking the vows pleased Ælfred, our scholar-King.

My father dispatched messengers to rouse our men and the next morning, before the sun had risen over the hills, we were on the march. Besides my father and I were nine House Ceorls and one hundred and twenty men, Cottagers and Freeholders all. The Ealdorman of Sceaftensbyrig does not fight with thralls. Forty miles to Reading as the Crow flies, sixty-five by the winding road and we forced marched it in two days. But the Danes had tricked us. They crossed the Thames above Windlesora and stormed into Wessex, sacking Farnham and only being turned back by a force of levies out of Wintanceaster. They avoided battle but pillaged and burned the villages about before heading back to join with their Ships at Putney, just above London.

That was when misfortune struck. Elfgirda and her mother had taken advantage of the peace to visit her sister at Waneting, where she was married to the Thegn's heir. On their return, they had driven east to avoid the Danes, near Reading, so they thought. They crossed the Thames at the Wey's bridge and walked into the rearguard of the Danish raiders at Gyldeford, where the road forks west to Wintanceaster. Their entourage was small. The guards were overwhelmed and the women were taken by Ivar the Boneless.

Bad news travels swift as a raven, as the saying goes. We heard the news of the Danish foray and my Elfgirda's capture the following day. The messengers arrived within an hour of dawn, grim news writ in their exhausted eyes. The King ordered us across the river and we marched along its banks towards London. The country thereabouts, once pleasing to the eye, was all devastation. Blackened ruins stood where once were farms. We came across a burnt-out church; the priest was nailed to the door in the Blood Eagle. These pagans hated priests most of all.

Below Windlesora, the ruin of the country grew worse. At every habitation, we came across the bodies of women and children, raped and slaughtered out of hand. The army's mood grew grim. For this was the nature of the war in those days. Somehow the Danes always moved faster. Ælfred had ever to raise the Fyrd; the Danes had no such cause for delay, they were an army always. Whenever our host came up with them, they retreated to their ships. The King would command a fleet to be built but that was in the future. For the present we could only pursue on land. And pursue we did.

It was a tired army that straggled into Fullanhamm that night. The village had been sacked and burned and we made a cold camp within the ruins. The King sent scouts along the riverbank. They returned at midnight with a prisoner. They caught the pagan after a sharp fight. Ten of ours met six of theirs but they gave a good account of themselves, sending four good Saxons to the Lord before being overwhelmed.

The prisoner was a savage. An axe had taken his sword-arm at the elbow and he was weak with loss of blood. Still he spat at us and cursed us in their uncouth tongue. My father sent for me as I had some words of Danish, learned, like my Frankish and Latin, from the old Friar who had tutored us at the Abbey schoolroom in Sceaftensbyrig. They had tried torture and got curses in return for their trouble and his pains.

"We are going to kill you," I told him and he shrugged. He knew that.

"Tell me what I ask and you may die with a sword in your hand." Thus he would go to Valhalla and not be a wandering ghost, or such were his beliefs. He looked at me closely.

"Can I trust you, puppy?" He said. "My oath," I replied and he nodded. "Ask away."

"Ivar has taken my Thegn's wife and daughter. Whither is he bound?"

"Is the girl young?"

"Fifteen, come winter"

"Then thank your milksop God. She's too old for Ivar. He dines on younger meat."

"What will he do with her?"

"Ransom or slavery, it's all one to the Boneless man."

"Where will he take her?"

"To the winter camp at Theodford, most like. I can tell you no more, now give me the sword, puppy, and make an end."

"I will, as I swore. But one more thing; why do men call him the Boneless?"

He laughed at this with genuine amusement. "No iron in his sword, puppy, when it comes to women. That's why he's for the bairns! He's a devil in a fight but droops at the sight of tits! Now come, puppy. I would hear the valkerie."

I killed him then, with a sword in his hand, as I'd promised. He deserved to die but there was no call for cruelty. I killed him clean. He smiled as he died, but I did not.

I told my father what I'd learned and he told the Thegn. "Then they are lost," was all he would say and turned aside from us. I looked at my father and he shook his head. "The King has forbidden ransom," he said and I could hear the sadness in his voice. "Then it must be a rescue," I said. He looked at me as if I was suddenly struck with madness. "The King will send no army into Danelaw for a woman and a girl, boy," he said, but it was not unkind. I nodded agreement. The King would never leave Wessex unprotected, even to rescue the Queen herself.

I felt the rage building inside me and hot tears burning in my eyes. I struggled for control and then I said, my voice choked and cracking, "An army would be no good, Father. They would know we were coming and vanish into the fens or back to their ships. I will go alone." My father stared then gave a mirthless laugh. "That's your heart thinking, my son, not your head. Do you think the Danes will stand aside and let you take them? They will kill before you get twenty miles."

But my mind was made up. It was all one to me. If I couldn't save Elfgirda than I might as well be dead. The young believe such things and I muttered some such nonsense. My father put his arm about my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. Whatever he saw there I don't know but he shook his head sadly. "Well, you're a man now and must go to Hell your own way," he said. "Go if you must and with a father's blessing. It wouldn't hurt to get the blessing of the Church as well. Bishop Wulfhere is with the King. Go you and make your confession and ask his intercession with St Anthony for your success." St Anthony was my father's particular Saint, invoked on all occasions of great import or solemnity. It was the only bit of Christianity that ever rubbed off on him. So I went to the Bishop and had my blessing.

Ælfred heard of my attempt and sent for me. I bowed to my King; we Saxons do not kneel or grovel like the Franks. "Hereward, son of Edmond of Sceaftensbyrig," said the King. "There would be no shame now to give this up and no man here will say you are forsworn. Sometimes it takes greater courage to walk away than to fight. Are you still determined on this rescue?" "I am, my Lord," I replied and the King smiled. "Very well," he said, "So be it." He turned to one of the House Ceorls. "Give this man three of the best horses and such provisions as he needs." He turned back to me and he still smiled. "Go then, Hereward, with my favour." He raised his voice to the host about. "Wessex need not fear when her sons are such men as this!" And my heart swelled with pride as I rode from the camp, the cheers of the army ringing in my ears.

I headed due north that first day, skirting the edge of the Danelaw and keeping to the Mercian side. Mercia was all but a Danish fiefdom in those days but still Saxon enough to offer a mort less danger than the lands to the east. I made a cold camp outside Heoretford that night. The impulse that had driven thus far was still hot and bright in my breast but I needed more. The following morning I rode into the town as the gates were opened for the new day. The townsfolk stared, but not too closely. It was obvious I was come from the war with my shield and great axe slung on one of the led horses and a long dagger at my hip. I'm told I was fair of face in those far-off days of youth but that day my face was as thunder.

Townsfolk and farmers respect the warrior but do not wish his company unless the enemy is at the gates. This town was no different and I could almost hear the collective sigh of relief when I rode on. I had hoped for news but there was none. The Inn was crowded with drovers come from Warwickshire. They knew nothing of the Danish army that I had not seen myself. They walked carefully around me and said nothing untoward but spat when I said I was from Wessex.

These days, now that Ælfred is King of all the English Saxons, Wessex and Mercia are as one. It was not so in the days of turmoil. There were many in Mercia who resented him then, even if he had married their own King's daughter and come to their aid on more than one occasion. Some saw him as prolonging the wars. The Danes came like the plague and, like the plague, they passed on. Of course, it was easier to get rid of the Danes. All you had to do was pay them. As long as you could keep paying, they would pass. For Ælfred and Wessex, the days of danegeld were over. Now he paid them in a different coin - death.

The autumn was come to Mercia and with it foul weather. I struggled for the next few days through sheeting rain, driven hard by a blustery west wind. The tracks turned to streams and the winterbournes filled and became rivers again. Leaves snowed thick upon the trackways and my woollen cloak weighed heavy round my shoulders. The horses and I were all thoroughly miserable as we plodded, heads bowed, ever north and east.

The country changes after Heoretford. The hills disappear and the woods that cover much of the country to the south and west die out. What is left is heath land and vile fen, where strange lights flicker in the night. It's said these lights are the souls of the unshriven. I know not, nor wish I to discover. I crossed the Cam and came to the land of the North Folk. Angles, cousins to the Saxons, they speak our tongue with a queer lilt. I was now in the Danelaw.

There are some that suppose that only Danes live within the Danelaw. It isn't so. Most are Angles in the northern part and East Saxons in the south, in the country above London. Ruled by Danes they may be, but they are English still. They have no reason to love their new masters. They are little better than slaves but they live, at least.

My plan, such as it was, was to find a local with a knowledge of Theodford Camp. I reasoned that if I could pinpoint Ivar's quarters, I could get to the women under cover of night. The Danes wouldn't be alert, safe here in their heartland. Surprise would be on my side and if challenged, well, I had my Danish.

We don't look so different from them; their clothes may have been a little different but that could be easily remedied. Now they had been here some years, even that distinction had begun to blur. At night and at distance, I reckoned I could pass for a Dane. I had just to get the women out of the camp and back to the horses. We would be away and gone before daylight and, with God's help, back into Wessex in four days, five at the outside. Truth to tell it sounded too simple even to my own credulous ears. And so it proved to be.

The first obstacle was to find someone who knew the camp. Theodford Camp sprawled upon the heath, a reeking scar on a rotten landscape. Everywhere was mud, thick and glutinous. A Danish army is not noted for its tidiness any more than for its mercy. The place was like a midden, no, it was a midden. I could discern no order in the camp. Man and beast conspired to produce a stinking chaos. Only God knew how the plague stayed away. The land in those parts is flat and open. There was no hill to provide a vantage point and the woods were sad, scrawny things, providing little cover now the leaves were gone.

I made my reconnaissance in the dawn, crawling through sodden bracken and couch grass. I was soaked to the skin before I got half way to the palings that surrounded the camp. These were designed more to keep the livestock in than to keep any invader out. I discovered nothing of use for my efforts. I found a slight depression in the heath to lie up in during the day. From there I could watch any comings and goings from the camp. There were precious few.

The only building of significance was a hall at the centre. Not grand enough to be a true Great Hall, it still doubtless served that function for I could see the warriors gathering there as dusk began to fall. I dragged myself back to my camp in the thickest part of the woods thereabout. I was cold, wet and disheartened. As far as I could tell, all within the camp lived there. There were no day-labourers I could woo to point out Ivar's hut to me or say where hostages might be held. As I made my bed of sodden ferns and bracken, all I could do was pray that the morrow might bring hope.

At least it brought an end to the rain. A watery sun rose with the dawn as I crept once more to my lookout place. The wind too had died. The camp woke slowly. The sun must have been up two hours and more before the first bleary Dane emerged from the poor Great Hall. It was then that I noticed the girl. She was a skinny, slatternly thing but she was outside the palings. She was rolling a small water butt down to the bourne that skirted the southern side of the camp. It was the kind of stream we call a winterbourne - dry in summer but full throated now with the autumn rain. I guessed it drained into that nightmare of swamp and brackish ponds called the fens. I hadn't noticed it before from where I lay. The land was flat and the cut of this ditch could not be discerned from ground level. If it hadn't been for the girl I wouldn't have seen it at all.

She looked to be an Angle from her dress. I didn't think there would be many Danish menials in the camp. I slithered over the wet couch towards her. She didn't see me coming, intent as she was on filling her barrel. Slipping quickly over the edge of the bank, I was suddenly beside her. I covered her mouth with my hand to stop her crying out.

"No, master," she cried in Danish, "Please, no more. I am hurt." I hushed her with a gesture. She couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. The bloodstains on her skirts told their own story. "Quiet, girl!" I murmured, for sound travels far in still air. She gasped. "You're Saxon, I took you for one of them." She almost spat this last.

"I am Hereward, son of Edmond of Sceaftensbyrig and King Ælfred's man," I told her. By the effect this had I might have well said I had just fallen from the moon or hailed from farthest Tartary. Her eyes grew round and her mouth opened like a trout catching mayflies.

"Wessex?" she said at last, "You've come from Wessex?" I nodded my assent. "Great merciful God has heard us! Where is your army? Are you a scout for the King's host? Will you kill them all?" The questions were tumbling from her, words scrambling over each other in their rush to be heard first. I held up my hand for silence.

"I come alone," I said and her faced collapsed in misery. She made to turn from me and I grasped her arms and shook her. With a weary gesture she began to remove her skirt.

"What are you doing? In Christ's sweet name, I mean you no harm."

"Dane or Saxon, it's all one to me now."

"I want your help, girl, not your cunny."

"And what help can I give?"

"Let me explain."

And explain I did. We were crouched at the stream's edge, out of sight from the camp as I told her my story. She still had that mooncalf look in her eyes but I could see she was taking it all in. When I mentioned Ivar's name she looked terrified and began to sob. I gentled her with my hand upon her hair, as one would quiet a foal. After a little, her chest ceased heaving and she told me all that had befallen her.

Her name, she told me, was Beate. The Danes had taken her that summer with her younger sister from a village on the Medway, far to the south. She was twelve years old, her sister, three years younger. On the first night of her captivity, Ivar had taken her to his bed. She had been too old for the Boneless man. He had stripped her and, on seeing her forlorn little bush of hair, howled like a rabid dog. He raped her then with the hilt of his dagger before casting her, naked, to his men. Since then, they had used her every night. She had fallen pregnant but miscarried three weeks before. I thought her lucky to be alive; doubtless she thought differently.

Ivar had taken her sister in her stead. The child had died after a couple of months. Ivar had hurt her until she bled. The bleeding had never stopped. A single tear welled her in her eyes as she remembered. I was moved beyond tears, beyond words. I snarled and spat and cursed his name to Hell. And then I swore a deep and solemn oath. Ivar would die by my hand; there would be no mercy.

Beate promised that she would try and discover where Elfgirda and her mother were being held. She told me that there were some women being held for ransom and these had not been harmed as yet. Ivar had little patience, though, it seemed. If no ransom was paid at the first demand, he sold the younger hostages to Friesian traders. The elder became drudges, or worse. I helped her lift the barrel above the bank and watched her struggle back to the camp with her burden. We agreed to meet again the following day. I crawled back to my hideout to continue the vigil.

The sun waxed stronger through the day and I must have dozed off in its warmth. Truth to tell, I had not realised the extent of my exhaustion. I slept like a baby and woke a captive. The pricking of a dagger at my nape dragged me from deep slumber. I turned slowly to see the grinning faces. There were three of them.

"What have we got here?" The voice was pure Angle. The three of them crouched in my hollow. The grins were still in place but eyes flickered nervously towards the camp. The sleep had left me now and I knew them for what they were - Wolfsheads, lawless men driven out for their crimes. They were poorly armed. Two with daggers, one with a hunting bow. The arrows in his quiver were mismatched and poor things.

" I am Hereward, son of Edmund of Sceaftensbyrig and Ælfred's man, " I said, "Whose men are you?" Although I knew the answer. I saw the surprise on their filthy faces. What was a man of Wessex doing here on the edge of Theodford? I seized my chance and swung a boot into the nearest crotch, pulling my own dagger as I rolled away from them. The one I'd kicked collapsed; I swear I burst his fruit. The bowman tried to nock an arrow but his hands were shaking like a man with the ague. I dived at the remaining pair, arms flung, and bore them to the turf.