The Last Light of the Sun Read online

  And then one day, the ice gone, birds around and above them, Aeldred son of Gademar, who was the son of Athelbert, sends twenty men out in pairs, riding in different directions, each pair with the image of a sword carved upon a block of wood.

  Change is upon them, with the change of season. The gambler’s throw of a kingdom’s dice. If something is to happen it must be before the dragon-ships set sail from the east to cross the sea for these shores. The king on his isle in the marsh summons all that is left of the fyrd, and all other men, the host of the Anglcyn, to meet him on the next night of the blue full moon (spirits’ moon, when the dead wake) at Ecbert’s Stone, not far from Camburn Field.

  Not far at all from Raedhill.

  OSBERT AND BURGRED, comparing in whispers, have judged their number at a little under eight hundred souls, the summoned men of the west. They have reported as much to the king. There are more, in honesty, than any of them expected. Fewer than they need.

  When has any Anglcyn army had the men it needed against an Erling force? They are aware, by starlight, of risk and limitation, not indifferent to these things, but hardly affected by them.

  The sun has not yet risen; it is dark and still here at the wood’s edge. A clear night, little wind. This is a forest once said to be haunted by spirits, faeries, the presence of the dead. Not an inappropriate place to gather. Aeldred steps forward, a shadow against the last stars.

  “We will do the invocation now,” he says, “then move before light, to come upon them the sooner. We will pass in darkness, to end the darkness.” That phrase, among many, will be remembered, recorded.

  There is an element of transgression in doing the god’s rites before his sun rises, but no man there demurs. Aeldred, his clerics beside him (three of them now), leads that host in morning prayer before the morning comes. May we always be found in the Light.

  He rises, they move out, before ever the sun strikes the Stone. Some horsed, mostly on foot, a wide array of weapons and experience. You could call them a rabble if you wanted. But it is a rabble with a king in front of it, and a knowledge that their world may turn on today’s unfolding.

  There is an Erling force south-east of them, having come out from Raedhill at the (deliberately offered) rumour of a band of Anglcyn nearby, possibly led by Gademar’s last son, the one who could still dare call himself king of these fields and forests, this land the northmen have claimed. Ingemar could not but respond to this bait.

  Aeldred rides at the front, his two friends and thegns on either side. The king turns to look back on his people who have gathered here during the dark of a blue moon night.

  He smiles, though only those nearest can see this. Easy in the saddle, unhelmed, long brown hair, blue eyes (his slain father’s eyes), the light, clear voice carrying when he speaks.

  “It begins now, in Jad’s holy name,” he says. “Every man here, whatever his birth, will be known for the whole of his life as having been at Ecbert’s Stone. Come with me, my darlings, to be wrapped in glory.”

  IT IS GLORIOUS, in the event: as told by myriad chroniclers, sung so often (and variously), woven into legend, or into tapestries hung on stone walls, warming winter rooms. Osbert will live to hear his exploits of the day celebrated—and unrecognizable.

  He is at the king’s side when they leave the wood and move south towards Camburn where their outliers have reported the Erlings camped by a field they know. Burgred, at Aeldred’s command, takes one hundred and fifty men east, along the black line of the trees, to angle south as well, between Camburn and the walls of Raedhill.

  The Erlings are not yet awakened under the raven banners, are not yet ready for a day’s promised hunting of an Anglcyn band when that band—and rather more than that—appear from the north, moving at speed.

  The northmen have their watchmen, of course, and some brief warning. They are not, by any measure, cowards, and the numbers are near to even. Amid screamed orders they scramble into armour, seizing hammers and spears and axes; their leaders have swords. There is, however, much to the elements of surprise and speed in any fight, and disarray can turn a battle before it starts, unless leaders can master it.

  They have not expected even numbers today, or the ferocity of the charge that roars into their camp as the first hues of sunlight appear in the east. The northmen form urgent ranks, stand, buckle, hold again for a time. But only for a time.

  There is sometimes knowledge that can subvert men’s ardour on a battlefield: the Erlings here in Esferth know that they have walls not far away at Raedhill, behind which they can shelter, deal with these Anglcyn at leisure, without the chaos caused by this heavy, venomous, pre-dawn assault.

  Responding to the unspoken, their leaders order a pullback. Not an entirely wrong course. There is some distance to cover to Ingemar and the others back in Raedhill, but in the past the Anglcyn have been content to force the northmen to retreat. After which they would regroup to consider a next step. There is reason, therefore, to believe it will be so again as the sun comes up this bright spring morning, lighting meadow flowers and young grass.

  Then there is reason to understand that they are wrong. The men of the Anglcyn are not stopping to debate among themselves, to consider options and alternatives. They are following hard, some of them on horse, some with bows. The withdrawal becomes, in the way of these things, all too often, a flat-out retreat.

  And as the Erling escape from their abandoned camp and position becomes a clamorous rout, a flight east towards distant Raedhill, just about at the moment when fear will invest the body and soul of even a brave man, the northmen discover another host of the Anglcyn between them and the walls of safety—and the world, or that small corner of it, changes.

  Amid cries of Aeldred and Jad, withdrawal, retreat, rout turn into slaughter, very near the same wet, wintry plain that saw King Gademar blood-eagled as a winter’s wet, grey twilight came down.

  Less than half a year ago. The time it took Aeldred of Esferth to evolve from a fleeing refugee hiding in a swineherd’s bed, shivering with fever, to a king in the field, avenging his father and brother, cutting the northmen to pieces by the blood-soaked field that saw their own defeat.

  They even take the raven banner, which has never happened in these lands before. They kill Erlings all the way to the walls of Raedhill and make camp there at sunset, and there they pray with lifted voices at the long day’s end.

  In the morning the northmen send out emissaries, to offer hostages and sue for peace.

  IN THE MIDST of the last of the seven days and nights of feasting in Raedhill that accompany King Aeldred’s conversion of the Erling leader, Ingemar Svidrirson, into the most holy faith of Jad of the Sun, Burgred of Denferth, the king’s lifelong companion, finds that the black bile rising in his gorge is simply too strong.

  He leaves the banquet hall, walks alone into the beclouded night past the spearmen on guard, away from the spill of torchlight in the hall and the sounds of revelry, seeking a darkness to equal the one he finds within.

  He hawks and spits into the street, trying to dispel the clawing sickness he feels, which has nothing to do with too much ale or food and is, instead, about the desire to commit murder and the need to refrain.

  The noise is behind him now and he wants it there. He walks towards the town gates, away from the feasting hall, finds himself in a muddy laneway. Leans against a wooden wall there—a stable, from the sounds within—and draws a deep breath of the night air. Looks up at the stars showing through rents in the swift clouds. Aeldred told him once that there are those in distant lands who worship them. So many ways for men to fall into error, he thinks.

  He hears a cough, turns his head quickly. There is no danger here now, except, perhaps, to their souls because of what is happening in the banquet hall. He expects it to be a woman. There are many of them about, with all the soldiers in Raedhill. There’s money to be made by night, in rooms with a pallet, or even in the lanes.

  It isn’t a woman, following.

/>   “Windy out here. I brought us a flask,” Osbert says mildly, leaning back against the stable wall beside him. “The Raedhill brewhouse is run by a widow, it seems. Learned all her husband had to teach. King’s asked her to join his court, brew for us. I approve.”

  Burgred doesn’t want another drink but takes the flask. He has known Osbert as long as he’s known Aeldred, which is to say most of his life. The ale’s strong and clean. “Best ale I ever had was made by women,” he murmurs. “Religious house in the north, by Blencairn.”

  “Never been there,” Osbert says. “Hold the flask a bit.” He turns around. Burgred hears his friend urinating against the wall. Absently he drinks, looking up at the sky again. Blue moon over west, waning towards a crescent above the gates. It was full the night they won the second battle of Camburn Field and camped before these walls: not even a fourteen-night ago. They had Ingemar and his remnant penned in here like sheep, and a dead, unspeakably mutilated king to avenge. Burgred still wants to kill, an urge deeper than desire.

  Instead they are feasting that same Erling remnant, offering them gifts and safe passage east across the rivers to that part of these Anglcyn lands that has long been given over to the northmen.

  “He doesn’t think like we do,” Osbert murmurs, as if reading his mind. He takes back the flask.

  “Aeldred?”

  “No, the miller upstream. Of course Aeldred. You understand that Ingemar knelt before him, kissed his foot in homage, swore fealty, accepted Jad.”

  Burgred swears, viciously. “Carved his father open from the back, cracked his ribs apart and draped his lungs out on his shoulders. Yes, I know all these things.” His hands are fists, just saying it.

  The other man is silent for a time. The wind carries the sounds of the banquet to them. Someone is singing. Osbert sighs. “We were less than seven hundred men at the gates. They had two hundred left inside, and the season turning, which could mean dragon-ships, soon. We had no easy way of smashing into a walled, defended town. One day we might, but not now. My friend, you know all these things, too.”

  “So instead of starving them out, we feast, and honour them?”

  “We feast, and honour the god and their coming to his light.”

  Burgred swears again. “You speak that way, but in your heart you feel as I do. I know it. You want the dead avenged.”

  Sounds carry to them from the distant hall. “I believe,” says the other man, “that it is tearing him apart to do this, and he is doing it nonetheless. Be glad you are not a king.”

  Burgred looks over at him, the face hard to see in darkness. He sighs. “And these foul Erlings will stay with Jad? You really think so?”

  “I have no idea. Some of them have, before. Here’s what I do think: the world will know that Ingemar Svidrirson, who wanted to be a king here, has knelt and sworn loyalty to Aeldred of Esferth and accepted a sun disk and royal gifts from him, and will leave him eight hostages, including two sons—and we gave them nothing in exchange. Nothing. And I know that has never happened since first the Erlings came to these shores.”

  “You call the gifts nothing? Did you see the horses?”

  “I saw them. They are the gifts of a great lord to a lesser. They will be seen as such. Jad did defeat Ingavin here, and took the raven banners, too. My friend, come back and drink with me. We have won something important here, and it is just a beginning.”

  Burgred shakes his head. There is still pain, a congestion in his chest. “I would … follow him under the world to battle demons. He knows that. But …”

  “But not if he makes peace with the demons?”

  Burgred feels the heaviness, a weight like stones. “It was … easier on the isle, in Beortferth. We knew what we had to do.”

  “Aeldred still knows. Sometimes … with power … you do things that fall against your heart.”

  “I may not be suited for power, then.”

  “You have it, my dear. You will have to learn. Unless you leave us. Will you leave us?”

  The wind dies down, faint music fades. They hear horses through the stable wall.

  “You know I won’t,” Burgred says, finally. “He knows I won’t.”

  “We must trust him,” Osbert says, softly. “If we can keep him healthy and alive for long enough, they will not take us again. We will leave a kingdom to our children, one they can defend.”

  Burgred looks at him. Osbert is a shadow in the blackness of the laneway, and a voice forever known. Burgred sighs again, from the heart. “And they will learn how to read Merovius on cataracts, in Trakesian, or he’ll slaughter them all.”

  There is a pause, and then Osbert’s laughter in the darkness, rich as southern wine.

  Fevers were tertian, quartan, daily, or hectic. They stemmed—almost always—from imbalances in the four humours, the alignment of coldness, heat, moisture, dryness in all men. (There were other concerns peculiar to women, each month, or when they gave birth.)

  The fevered could be bled, with knife and cup, with leeches, in locations and in degrees according to the teachings followed by the physician. Sometimes the patient died of this. Death walked near to the living at all times. It was known. It was generally considered that a good physician was one who didn’t kill you sooner than whatever afflicted you would have.

  Those suffering from acute fever might be comforted (or not) by prayer, eased by poultices, wet sheets, warm bodies next to them, music, or silence. They were treated with hydromel and oxymel (and physicians had divergent views as to which sort of honey was best, in the mixing), or with aconite and wild celery when it was thought that witchery lay at the root of their burning. Lemon balm and vervain and willow would be compounded, or buckthorn to purge them inside, sometimes violently. Coltsfoot and fenugreek, sage and wormwood, betony, fennel, hock and melilot were all said to be efficacious, at times.

  Valerian might help a sufferer sleep, easing pain.

  Fingernails could be clipped and buried under an ash tree by blue moon’s light, though not, of course, if any cleric were about to know of it. And that same caution applied to remedies involving gemstones and invocations in the night wood, though it would be foolish to deny that these took place all over the kingdom of the Anglcyn.

  At one time or another, all of these remedies and more had been brought to bear in the matter of King Aeldred’s fevers, whether they were countenanced by the king and his clergy or not.

  None of them were able to reorder the marred world in such a way as to end the fires that still seized him some nights, so many long years after that first one had.

  “WHY IS IT DARK?”

  It was always predictable how the king would emerge, but, more recently, not how long it would take. What was certain was that he would be pale, weak-voiced, lucid, precise, and angry.

  Osbert had been dozing on the pallet they always made for him. He woke to the voice.

  “It is the middle of the night, my lord. Welcome back.”

  “I lost a whole day this time? Dear Jad. I haven’t got days to lose!” Aeldred was never profane, but the fury was manifest.

  “I dealt with the reports as they came. Both new burhs on the coast are on time, nearly complete, fully manned. The shipyard is at work. Be easy.”

  “What else?” Aeldred was not being easy.

  “The taxation officers went out this morning.”

  “The tribute from Erlond—Svidrirson’s? What word?”

  “Not yet, but … promised.” It was never wise to be less than direct with the king when he returned from wherever the fever took him.

  “Promised? How?”

  “A messenger rode in after midday. The young one, Ingemar’s son.”

  Aeldred scowled. “He only sends the boy when the tribute’s late. Where is he?”

  “Housed properly, asleep, I’d imagine. It is late. Be at ease, my lord. Athelbert received him formally in your stead, with his brother.”

  “On what excuse for my not being there?”

  Os
bert hesitated. “Your fevers are … known, my lord.”

  The king scowled again. “And where was Burgred, come to think of it?”

  Osbert cleared his throat. “We had rumour of a ship sighted. He went with some of the fyrd to find out more.”

  “A ship? Erling?”

  Osbert nodded. “Or ships.”

  Aeldred closed his eyes. “That makes little sense.” There was a silence. “You have been beside me all the time, of course.”

  “And others. Your daughters were here tonight. Your lady wife sat with you before going to chapel to pray for your health. She will be relieved to hear you are well again.”

  “Of course she will.”

  That had nuances. Most of what Aeldred said had layers, and Osbert knew a great deal about the royal marriage.

  The king lay still on his pillow, eyes shut. After a moment, he said, “But you never left, did you?”

  “I … went to the audience chamber to take the reports.”

  Aeldred opened his eyes, turned his head slightly to look at the other man. After a silence, he said, “Would you have had a better life had I driven you away, do you think?”

  “I find that hard to imagine, my lord. The better life and being driven away.”

  Aeldred shook his head a little. “You might walk properly, at least.”

  Osbert brought a hand down to his marred leg. “A small price. We live a life of battles.”

  Aeldred was looking at him. “I shall answer for you before the god one day,” he said.

  “And I shall speak in your defence. You were right, my lord, Burgred and I were wrong. Today is proof, the boy coming, the tribute promised again. Ingemar has kept his oath. It let us do what needed to be done.”

  “And here you are, unmarried, without kin or heir, on one leg, awake all night by the side of the man who—”

  “Who is king of the Anglcyn under Jad, and has kept us alive and together as a people. We make our choices, my lord. And marriage is not for every man. I have not lacked for companionship.”