The Last Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page A

man who can build a ship,” the young priest said, “can usually build a wall. It is not so hard as ship-building.”
    “It fell down!”
    “Perhaps it was meant to fall down,” Beocca said, and, when I just stared at him, he explained. “Perhaps they want us to attack there?”
    I do not know if he told my father of his suspicions, but if he did then I have no doubt my father dismissed them. He did not trust Beocca’s opinions on war. The priest’s usefulness was in encouraging God to smite the Danes and that was all and, to be fair, Beocca did pray mightily and long that God would give us the victory.
    And the day after the wall collapsed we gave God his chance to fulfill Beocca’s prayers.
    We attacked.
     
    I do not know if every man who assaulted Eoferwic was drunk, but they would have been had there been enough mead, ale, and birch wine to go around. The drinking had gone on much of the night and I woke to find men vomiting in the dawn. Those few who, like my father, possessed mail shirts pulled them on. Most were armored in leather, while some men had no protection other than their coats. Weapons were sharpened on whetstones. The priests walked round the camp scattering blessings, while men swore oaths of brotherhood and loyalty. Some banded together and promised to share their plunder equally, a few looked pale, and more than a handful sneaked away through the dykes that crossed the flat, damp landscape.
    A score of men were ordered to stay at the camp and guard the women and horses, though Father Beocca and I were both ordered to mount. “You’ll stay on horseback,” my father told me, “and you’ll stay with him,” he added to the priest.
    “Of course, my lord,” Beocca said.
    “If anything happens,” my father was deliberately vague, “then ride to Bebbanburg, shut the gate, and wait there.”
    “God is on our side,” Beocca said.
    My father looked a great warrior, which indeed he was, though he claimed to be getting too old for fighting. His graying beard jutted over his mail coat, above which he had hung a crucifix carved from ox bone that had been a gift from Gytha. His sword belt was leather studded with silver, while his great sword, Bone-Breaker, was sheathed in leather banded with gilt-bronze strappings. His boots had iron plates on either side of the ankles, reminding me of his advice about the shield wall, while his helmet was polished so that it shone, and its face piece, with its eyeholes and snarling mouth, was inlaid with silver. His round shield was made of limewood, had a heavy iron boss, was covered in leather and painted with the wolf’s head. Ealdorman Uhtred was going to war.
    The horns summoned the army. There was little order in the array. There had been arguments about who should be on the right or left, but Beocca told me the argument had been settled when the bishop cast dice, and King Osbert was now on the right, Ælla on the left, and my father in the center, and those three chieftains’ banners were advanced as the horns called. The men assembled under the banners. My father’s household troops, his best warriors, were at the front, and behind them were the bands of the thegns. Thegns were important men, holders of great lands, some of them with their own fortresses, and they were the men who shared my father’s platform in the feasting hall, and men who had to be watched in case their ambitions made them try to take his place, but now they loyally gathered behind him, and the ceorls, free men of the lowest rank, assembled with them. Men fought in family groups, or with friends. There were plenty of boys with the army, though I was the only one on horseback and the only one with a sword and helmet.
    I could see a scatter of Danes behind the unbroken palisades either side of the gap where their wall had fallen down, but most of their army filled that gap, making a shield barrier on top of the earthen wall, and it was a high earthen wall, at least ten or twelve feet