King Alfred's Viking Part 29

"Well, then," he went on, laughing at my eagerness, "go to Ethelnoth, and take twenty men, and do you and he fall on that post from Othery by night; and when you have scattered it, come back into the fen. I would have you lose no men, but I would make the Danes ma.s.s together by attack on some one point, and that as soon as may be, before Hubba comes. I do not want to hold their place."

Now that was the first of daily attacks on the Danish posts, at different places along the Selwood and Polden hills, until they thought that we wished to win Edington height, where we began and annoyed them most often. So I will tell how such a raid fared.

Good it was to lay aside pick and spade and take sword Helmbiter again, and don mail and helm; and I made Harek fence with me, lest I should have lost my sword craft through use of the weapons whereby the churl conquers mother earth. But once the good sword was in my hand I forgot all but the warrior's trade.

So Ethelnoth and I and twenty young thanes went in the evening to Othery island, and there found a fenman to guide us, and so went to the foot of Edington hill just as darkness fell. The watch-fire lights, that were our guide, twinkled above us through the trees that were on the hillside; and we made at once for them, sending on the fenman to spy out the post before we were near it. It was very dark, and it rained now and then.

When he came back to where we had halted, he said that there were about twenty tents, pitched in four lines, with a fire between each line; and that the men were mostly under cover, drinking before setting watch, if they set any at all.

So we drew nearer, skirting round into cover of some trees that came up to the tents, for the hilltop was bare for some way. The lighted tents looked very cheerful, and sounds of song and laughter came from them, and now and then a man crossed from one to another, or fed the fires with fresh wood, that hissed and sputtered as he cast it on.

"How shall we attack?" said Ethelnoth.

"Why, run through the camp in silence first and cut the tent lines, and then raise a war shout and come back on them. Then we may slay a few, and the rest will be scared badly enough."

Thereat we both laughed under our breath, for it seemed like a schoolboy's prank. Well, after the long toil in the fen, we were like boys just freed from school, though our game was the greatest of all--that of war--the game of Hodur's playground, as we Norse say.

Then I said:

"After we come through for the second time, we must take to this cover, and so get together at some place by the hill foot. There is a shed by a big tree that can be found easily."

So we pa.s.sed the wood, and our comrades chuckled. It was good sport to see the shadows of the careless Danes on the tent walls, and to know that they dreamed of nothing less than that Saxons were on them. Four rows of tents there were, and there were twenty-two of us; so we told off men to each row, and then made for them at a moment when no man was about--hacking at the ropes, and laughing to see the tents fall. It was strange to watch the shadows start up and stand motionless, as the first patter of feet came and the first blows fell, and then bustle, helpless and confused, with savage shouts and curses, as the heavy canvas and skins fell in upon them.

Now we were through the camp, and the outcries were loud behind us.

Two or three tents did not fall, and from them the men swarmed, half armed and startled, not knowing if this was not some sorry jest at first; and then rang our war cry from the dark, and we were back upon them. We were but two-and-twenty to a hundred, but they knew not what was on hand, while we did; and so we cut through them without meeting with any hurt. Two tents were on fire and blazing high, and blackened men cut and tore their way out of them howling; and I think that more than one Dane was cut down by his comrades in the panic that fell on all.

Yet even as we pa.s.sed into the cover and went our way back towards the fen, some bolder spirits began to rally, and a horn was blown.

But we were gone, leaving six slain and many more wounded among them, while not one of us was scratched.

They did not follow us, and we heard the clamour we had caused going on for some time after we had gained the fen. Presently, too, when we reached Othery, we saw a fire signal lit to call for help, and we were well content. Doubtless those Danes waked under arms all that night through.

After that these attacks were seldom so easy, for the Danes kept good watch enough; but they were ever the same in most ways.

Suddenly in the night would come the war cry and the wild rush of desperate men on some Danish outpost, and before they knew what to do we were away and into the fen again. We grew to know every path well before long, and sometimes we would fall on small parties of our foes when they were on the march or raiding the cattle, and cut through them, and get back to our fastness.

Once or twice we were followed in the grey of early morning; but few Danes ever got back from that pursuit. We would cut them off amid the peat bogs, or they would founder therein, and sink under the weight of armour.

Then they tried to force some fenmen they caught to guide them to us at Othery. Once the brave fenman led them to where they dared not move till daylight came, while the blue fen lights flitted round them like ghosts in the dark; and then the fen people swarmed round them, and ended them with arrows and sling stones from a distance. They tried no more night attacks on us after that. But again they came in some force by daylight, and we had a strange fight on a narrow strip of hard land in Sedgemoor, with all advantage on our side. No Danes won back to the Polden Hills.

Then they dared not try the fens any more, and daily we kept their sentries watching, and nightly we fell on outposts, until at last they thought our force grew very great, and began to gather on Edington hill, even as Alfred wished. And this saved many a village and farm and town from plunder, for the fear of Alfred the king began to grow among his foes.

Then the king made his next move; for, now that the way was open, he sent to Odda at Exeter, bidding him move up to Taunton by some northerly road, gathering what Devon men he could on the way. There is hardly a stronger town in Wess.e.x than the great fortress that Ine the king made.

At this time I began to be full of thoughts about my ships. But they could hardly be built as yet; and most of them were in southern havens, whence, even were they ready, one could not bring them round the stormy Land's End in early March. Yet the weather was mild and open, and I began to think that at any time Hubba might bring his Danes across the narrow Severn sea to join his kinsmen at Edington. We heard, too, that Guthrum, the king of East Anglia, was there now, and that he had summoned every warrior who would leave the land he had won to come to him.

Men have blamed Guthrum for treachery in this; but seeing that the peace was broken, and that he must needs fight for the peace at least of his kingdom, I hold that this is not right. At all events, Alfred blamed him not in the time to come. Nevertheless, I suppose that in men's minds he always will be held answerable for what the other chiefs wrought of ill, because he bore the name of king from the first, and ruled East Anglia. No Saxon, who is used to hold his king as over all, will understand how little power a host-king of the north has.

Now all this while my good ship lay at Bridgwater, and with her were fifty of my men, who were well quartered among the townsfolk, and helped to guard the bridge. And, as I have said, two ships were being built there. So one day in the third week in March I rode away with Kolgrim from Athelney, to see how all things were going on there, meaning also to go to Heregar's place for a time, having messages to give him from the king.

Harek was coming with me; but Alfred asked me to spare him for this time.

"I have to learn somewhat from the scald," he said.

"Wizardry, my king?" I asked, laughing, for that was ever a jest at the scald's expense after it was known how we found out that Alfred was at Denewulf's house.

"Nay, but song," he answered. "Now I see not why I should not tell you who put the thought into my mind; but I am going, as you did, to spy out the Danish camp. And I will go as a gleeman, and be welcome enough as a Saxon who has enough love of Danes to learn some northern sagas for them!"

"My king," I cried, "this is too perilous altogether."

He looked quaintly at me.

"Go to, cousin; are you to have all the glory? If you went, why not I? Maybe I too may find a chance of helping some fair maiden on the way back."

Then I prayed him to do nothing rash, for that he was the one hope of England.

"And maybe the one man in England who can do any good by going, therefore," he answered. "And neither you nor I would ask any man to do for us what we durst not do ourselves."

"You will be known, my king," I said.

Whereon he held out his hands, which were hard and h.o.r.n.y now with hard work, and he laughed as he did so.

"Look at those," he said, "and at my unkempt hair and beard! Verily I may be like Alfred the king in some ways, but not in these. They will pa.s.s me anywhere."

So I could not dissuade him, and ever as I tried to do so he waxed more cheerful, and made sport of me, throwing my own doings in my teeth, and laughing about Thora. So I was fain to get away from his presence, lest I should grow angry at last. And when I was going he said:

"Have no fear, cousin; I will not go unless I am well prepared."

So I went, and next day was back in Athelney, riding hard; for Hubba's ships had been sighted from the Quantocks, and they were heading for the Parret. What I looked for and feared was coming.

Then Alfred sent messengers to Odda, who had come to Taunton two days before this. And he gathered every man from the fen, and we went to Bridgwater, leaving our little force there, and so rode on the way to Combwich, thinking to see the sails of the ships in Bridgwater Bay. But a shift of wind had come, and they were yet over on the Welsh coast, waiting for the tide to enable them to come down on us.

By that time a fire burned on the highest spur of the Quantocks to tell us that Odda was there, and at once another was lit on the Combwich fort to bring him to us, for it seemed certain that here we must fight the first battle of Alfred's great struggle.

"Here you must meet this newcomer and drive him away, if it can be done, or if not, hinder him from coming further; or if that is impossible, do your best. I would have you remember that defeat here is not loss of all hope, for beyond Selwood lies our real gathering. But victory, even if dearly bought, will almost win the day for us."

So Alfred said, and we, who began to see what his great plan was, were cheered.

In the evening Odda came with eight hundred men of Devon. Alfred had two hundred maybe, and my few men and the townsfolk made another two hundred. But Hubba had twenty-three longships, whose crews, if up to fighting strength, would not be less than a hundred in each.

So we watched till the tide fell, when he could not come into the Parret, and then I went back to Heregar's hall. It seemed very bare, for all goods had been sent up to the great refuge camp of Dowsborough, to which all day long the poor folk had been flying, driving with them their sheep and cattle and swine, that they might save what they could. But with Odda had come his daughter, the Lady Etheldreda, who would not leave him; and she and the Lady Alswythe and Thora were yet in the house, and Osmund the jarl sat in the hall, listless and anxious of face. It was an ill time for him; but there were none of us who did not like him well, and feel for him in his helplessness.

"What news?" he said, when he saw me come into the hall.

"Hubba will be here on the next tide--with early morning," I said.

He sighed, and rising up went to the doorway and looked out to the hills.

"I would that I could make these two n.o.ble ladies seek refuge yonder," he said; "but one will not leave her father, nor the other her husband."