Shieldmaiden Read online

  The war-horns sounded on the English side. Ours answered, a long, drawn out note followed by many short bursts. With a rush of bile to my throat I saw the long line of Aethelstan’s fyrd move towards us. I bent forward and was sick on the ground.

  ‘Just take it steady.’ muttered a voice behind me. ‘And let your hair loose. It will unsettle them and encourage us. They will think you are one of those demons they believe in and we will see our shieldmaiden all the better.’

  I shook my hair free of pins and combs. Then I straightened up, determined to meet my fate with the same courage my father had met his.

  The English weapons sparkled in the bright light. The men beat the rhythm of their steps on their shields and the sound was like rolls of thunder. Their battle-cries soared above the field and met ours in the air as if a contest of sound preceded the real fight. Someone broke our ranks and rushed forwards, followed by others until we all joined in a wild scramble across the field. The air above us filled with arrows, spears and throwing axes. Some found a target and men fell. Blood flowed from the first wounds. Our pace increased. I raised my shield and joined in the war-cry of the Cumbrian Norse: ‘Odin, Odin’. All round me men were running. I ran with them. Leaping and stumbling over the uneven land, slipping on the heather and the brushwood, we stormed with a loud cheer, headlong towards death.

  The front-men careered into each other with a mighty crash. I was not far behind. When I reached the enemy, I angled my shield upwards, remembering to make my short stature an advantage. I ducked a swinging sword. Snakebite found her way under the warrior’s guard and stung his crotch. He screamed and crashed, writhing, to the ground. I had felled my first enemy in battle.

  I used my shield to deflect an axe wielded by a huge red-haired berserker. The two-handed blow knocked my arm sideways across my body and the force of it swung me round. I knew he would aim for my un-protected back and leaped aside. His axe missing its target made the red-head stumble and bend sufficiently low for Snakebite to reach his throat. She drew blood but not enough and the warrior bellowed in fury as he straightened up and lifted his axe to finish me off. He expected me to pull back but I dived towards him, ducked under his axe and drove Snakebite into his belly. My sweet sword slid into his flesh and opened him up like a herring being gutted. He lowered his axe but I clung to him and the axe-head couldn’t reach me without him having to change his grip. My shield-arm embraced his large, hairy torso and my shield was lodged behind his right arm. With my other hand I tried to hold on to Snakebite, who wouldn’t retract from his belly. I had to stay close or the berserker would smite me down with one blow. His blood soaked the front of my tunic and the warm reek of his intestines filled my nostrils. He let go of the axe with one hand and grasped my hair trying to pull me off. Then his knees folded and he fell, dragging me down with him and pinning me to the ground. We lay like two lovers in a deadly embrace. His breath turned to a shallow rattle. His body became slack and heavy. Over his shoulder I saw Thorfinn finish an enemy by cutting off his head. I called him and he helped free me. He glanced at the body of the berserker and nodded at me.

  ‘Odin is on your side today. You fight well.’ We set off in pursuit of our enemy and for that day our quarrel was put aside.

  My memory of my first battle is like a wool blanket with holes in it. The entirety is dark and confused but shards of clear recollection burst forth; the flared nostrils and gaping mouth of a charging berserker, the severed leg of a Scottish warrior next to his twitching body, the crushed skull of a Viking spilling grey and red matter on to the tangled heather and later having to step on the piles of bodies of dead and wounded warriors.

  How many did I kill on that battlefield? Thorfinn told me a full dozen but I don’t know. As I grow old I believe one should honour those warriors by remembering them but the battles are too many and too long ago. We stayed together Thorfinn and I on Vin Moor. He saved my life and I his many times over until we were separated towards the end of the day.

  One by one the banners of Constantine, Olaf, Hilrinc, Anlaf, Inwood and other kings and earls I didn’t know, were lowered. King Athelred’s dragon-banner remained, proud and erect and his men raised the victory cry. We had lost the battle. The defeated armies withdrew although some continued to fight from sheer fury. I was overcome by a sense of sad weariness. There seemed no point in going on. My body hurt from many cuts and bruises and I had a limp from a sword cut to my right knee. It began to rain. I walked away and sought shelter among the shadows of the forest until night would hide me.

  I was not the only one leaving the field. As I hid between a tree and a boulder, I saw men running, some alone others in groups. Some threw down their heavy shields to be able to run faster and one left a banner behind, a banner with two black ravens. So the men from Orkney were leaving as well. I crouched lower in my hiding place and from there I witnessed much slaughter of the defeated. Their pursuers, drunk on victory and hatred, cut down the injured and listened to no pleas for mercy or offers of reward.

  8.

  The rain fell heavy and straight. I had lost my helmet and my hair hung wet and cold on my shoulders. I thought of my father. Had he too run away from a lost battle? Is it the action of a coward to flee when there is no longer any hope?

  Thor rode his chariot across the sky. The volatile god vented his fury on the clouds and the sparks from Mjolner lit the darkness in mighty strokes. I put down my shield, my sword and my knife. It would not do to challenge the hammer-wielding god by carrying weapons. A stand of hazel gave some shelter against the storm and I curled up on the wet ground. Had my actions on the battlefield angered the Aesir and brought him out in all his terrible glory? Had he come to punish me for running away?

  But you can’t hide from a god and I resolved not to be such a coward as to stay shivering in a bush. I crawled out and met the storm on trembling legs but with my head held high. And Thor was placated and rode away. The flashes when he threw his hammer and the crashes when it struck home receded into the distance and I was left alive but alone in the darkness on Vin Moor. Around me the sound of thunder was replaced with the moans of the dying and the screams of the lost. There was movement, shadowy figures, animals, humans and all things in between. I picked up my weapons again and, limping on my injured leg, started off in the direction I thought the camp would be.

  During the battle it was impossible not to trample the bodies of the dead, wounded and those who had just tripped and fallen. I hardly noticed in the end. I just concentrated on keeping upright and fighting for my life. Afterwards, in the dark, it was different. I stumbled, slipped and fell over inert bodies. My hand caught a soggy stomach-wound and the stench made me retch. One body let out a moan, another rolled over, limbs moved. The death-rattles of men who had a few hours ago been alive, mingled with cries of pain and pitiful pleas for help. It echoed in the mist like a choir of Helheim.

  I kept walking. Lights moved around, torches used by people looking for spoils or searching for survivors. I kept clear of them, not trusting friend or foe in the dark. I saw two women tugging at the arm of a dead warrior and grunting with the effort of prising a heavy armlet over his stiffening elbow. That could have been me, I thought, lying naked, dead and cold being robbed of my weapons and jewellery and then left for the wolves and the crows. There were plenty like them, pulling off mailshirts and helmets, gathering up weapons to sell to the survivors. But there were others too. Men and women searched for husbands and other kin or for friends. They moved without stealth, calling the names of those they sought. And among those calls one sounded my name.

  ‘Sigrid! Sigrid Kveldulfsdaughter! Siii-griiiid!!’ The cry was interspersed with loud sobs. It was the voice of a child. Brave little Olvir, conquering his fear of the dark and the dead, had come searching for me. I called in reply and soon held the shivering, crying boy in my arms.

  Olvir led me back towards the camp. ‘I have packed the tent.’ he said in a defiant voice. ‘I don’t think we should stay here any
longer.’ He pulled up snot through his nose. ‘I heard all them kings and princes and them are dead and so are most of the warriors except the ones that ran away.’

  I had no idea how to get home but I tried to sound confident.

  ‘Yes we shall leave for home but I need to rest and wash my wounds.’

  ‘Oh Sigrid, you’re wounded! So you fought like a proper warrior.’ Olvir sounded full of awe and squeezed my hand. The darkness hid my grim smile.

  Our tent and few other belongings were piled in a heap. Next to it sprawled Thorfinn. He was on his back and the ground trembled with his thunderous snores. I shook him but he didn’t react. It was close to daybreak. Olvir fretted.

  ‘Everyone’s running away. I think we should too or they’ll come and kill us. They do, you know. I saw them killing people who were running and wounded. Please Sigrid, leave him and let’s go.’

  But Thorfinn would know how to get us back home. I tried again to rouse him.

  ‘Sigrid, pleeease! We must go. It’s almost light.’

  I aimed one last kick at Thorfinn’s back. It didn’t even interrupt the rhythm of his snores. So for the second time I left him for dead but this time I left his horse as well.

  We tried to move in the shelter of the forest but Moonbeam stumbled on the deadwood and the lower branches got caught in the load on her back. Olvir was exhausted and I was limping. The wound on my knee had not been cleaned and dressed. It throbbed and sent arrows of pain through my whole leg. The few hunched figures I saw moving in the early dawn mist were no threat. So I decided we would ride and follow the track we had arrived on. If we watched out we would be able to run for cover, should anyone approach. Olvir climbed up in front of me on the horse and at once fell asleep. I steered Moonbeam through what remained of the camp.

  It proved larger than I had realised. Evidence of our defeat showed everywhere, in the wrecked and abandoned tents flapping in occasional gusts of wind, in the reek from the wet but still smoking camp-fires, in the weapons, clothes and boots strewn on the trampled ground. There were reclining figures, dead or alive made no difference to us. We rode slowly. The mare’s hooves seemed to echo through the silence. I kept searching, still hoping I would spot Ragnar. He wasn’t there. I began to wonder whether he’d ever been part of King Olaf ’s army.

  I had been so sure the gods would lead me to him. When I left little Kveldulf behind at Swanhill it had been to go and find Ragnar, to stop Hauk killing him and to bring him back to Becklund. I had felt so sure he would get a pardon from King Harald. Why should the son be held responsible for his father’s crime? But since then I had seen the fierce hatred of kings and I had witnessed the slaughter of the defeated and I knew there was no mercy and there would be no pardon.

  They came out of the mist in silent, swift ambush. Moonbeam reared and Olvir and I tumbled off. I cried out as my already battered body hit the ground. Olvir crawled across to me and sobbing threw his arms around me. I couldn’t get up. I sat among a multitude of horses’ legs, cradling Olvir, waiting for the end, hoping it would be swift.

  Twelve warriors in mailshirts and helmets and one man dressed in a black, full-length tunic with long sleeves and a hood over his head. He had no weapons and round his neck, instead of the golden neck-ring from a war-lord, hung a large silver cross with the dead god Christ on it. I had heard of this kind of man, a monk. But I had been told they didn’t fight. So what was this one doing here? Dazed, I looked up at him.

  He stared back. Although my hair hung loose, I was still in man’s clothing and my weapons were on my horse. It was obvious I had been part of the battle.

  ‘But this is a woman!’ His voice was little more than a whisper.

  ‘Oh, I recognise her!’ said one of the warriors. ‘She fights as hard as any man and I saw her slay more than one of ours.’ He dismounted and gripped his axe.

  ‘No!’ The monk shook his head so his hood fell down. The shaved patch in the middle of his head glistened. ‘You can’t kill a woman with a child in her arms.’

  ‘Makes no difference, she has killed as much as the others.’

  ‘No, I can’t allow this. Put your axe away.’

  ‘No survivors, the orders were quite clear.’

  ‘I answer to King Aethelstan himself. On his authority I order you to leave the woman alone.’

  ‘On your head be it, Master Scribe, but what shall we do with her then? She’s not like the other women who fight when they have to and with what weapon they find. This one fights like a warrior. I’ve seen it.’

  A third man got involved: ‘Why don’t we take her with us? A real, live shieldmaiden like in the minstrel’s songs, the King should see this for himself.’

  Again I was the object of amusement. This time I didn’t mind. I was still alive.

  King Aethelstan had set up court at Brunnanburh. I rode there escorted by the monk and his party of warriors. They led a row of pack-horses laden with the spoils from defeated warriors. Olvir sat in front of me on Moonbeam and one of the soldiers carried my weapons. The rest of our possessions were thrown away.

  We rode through the gate in the wooden palisade and up to a house the size of a giant’s hall. The King’s little scribe gave orders and our horses were relieved of their burdens and led away. One of the warriors pushed me and was about to hit me with the hilt of his sword. The scribe held up a hand.

  ‘No! I will not have the woman or the child mistreated. They are under my protection until the King decides otherwise.’

  The booty was carried into the hall and we followed. Olvir clung to my hand and looked around with open mouth. In spite of my exhaustion I too was overcome by the splendour of the hall. Every wall was covered in rich hangings and there were oil-lamps and candles suspended from the beams. The hearth held a lively fire and the roof was so tall the smoke all but disappeared, leaving the air in the hall clear. There were a great many people gathered, mostly men looking weary after the battle, many with blood-soaked bandages. I wondered whether anyone would let me take care of my injured leg. I tried to put my weight on the other foot but I was trembling with fatigue and found it hard to keep my balance. I stuck close to my protector, trying to keep out of the way of the stealthy pushes and blows from the warrior behind us. He had seen me limp and enjoyed kicking my bad leg.

  An ox roasted over the fire. Everyone seemed to be eating. Women bustled back and forth with drinking horns and steaming platters piled high with meat. The smell of food made me realise I hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. Olvir sniffed the aroma. He looked up at me and whined:

  ‘Sigrid, I’m hungry.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Me too.’

  ‘Will they give us some food?’

  ‘I don’t know. Better be quiet. We mustn’t annoy them.’

  Olvir let go of my hand. Our guards were looking elsewhere as he slipped away. I watched him sidle up to a matron and smile. It worked, it always did. That boy would never go hungry. He returned to my side with a slice of meat, part of which he put in my hand. But whereas Olvir was able to avoid the guards’ attention, I couldn’t.

  ‘That’s not for you!’ The meat was snatched from me and I watched it disappear between the heavy whiskers of my guard. My insides screamed with hunger but I was not allowed to forget there were those who wanted me dead.

  Then the monk gave a sign and moved ahead. The guard took the opportunity to take my arm in a painful grip and push me forward. As we passed the hearth I could see the far end of the room. On a dais, behind a huge table, sat King Aethelstan. His chair had carvings of eagles’ heads on the back and arm-rests. There was no mistaking the King. He wore a broad diadem set with lustrous jewels in many colours, his cloak was of finest wool trimmed with precious stones and gold threads. He was surrounded by men, some in fine clothes but some of them still carrying the mud and tears of yesterday’s battle. Next to the King sat a young warrior. His face was pale and tired under a golden diadem almost as rich as the King’s. This must be Edmund Aetheling, the
King’s younger brother. Fourteen years old and already battle-hardened.

  Our scribe spoke to one of the lords seated by the King. The lord looked my way and I saw him smile in amusement. He turned and spoke to the king:

  ‘Sire, look what Ansgar brought. A real, live shieldmaiden.’ The King didn’t hear him but the young Prince looked at me and laughed.

  ‘Ansgar, what a splendid jest!’

  ‘It’s not a jest, my Prince. I have come to find out what to do with her. She has a child with her too. It really is most…ah…most…’

  The Prince roared with laughter and Ansgar fell silent. Then Prince Edmund leant forward.

  ‘And what’s a wench in armour doing at the King’s court?’ We now had the full attention of everyone and Aethelstan himself listened with a smile on his thin lips.

  ‘With your permission, Sire.’ A tall man had been whispering with one of my guards. ‘This is no ordinary wench. She has slain many of your faithful warriors. Ulf the Proud, I saw it myself how she ran him through with her sword, and Halfdan the Pale.’ He was interrupted by a lanky boy with a blood-soaked rag round his head, rising from his seat by the fire.