Havelok The Dane by Charles Whistler (freenovel24 .TXT) 📖

easily, but for want of training--and they were forced back across the brook, and there held our bank well, giving way no step further. The water kept them in an even front, against their will, as it were; and Alsi's men charged them in vain, knee deep in the stream that ran red. But that let loose the men who had been held back from us; and now we were overborne by numbers, and we began to go back. That was the worst part of the whole fight, and the hardest hour of all the battle, as may be supposed, for the wedge grew closer, as it was forced together by sheer weight. None ever broke into it.

Presently our rear was on the water's edge, and it seemed likely that in crossing there might be a breaking of the line; and when he saw that, Havelok called to me, and he went to the front with the courtmen round him. It was good to hear the cheers of our men as they saw the dancing banner above the fight, and beneath it, in the bright sun, the gold-circled helm of their king. The Lindseymen drew back a foot's pace as they saw the giant who came on them, and I heard some call that this was Curan of Grimsby, as if in wonder. Then we had to fight hard, and Sigurd fell back past me, with a wound on his shoulder where Alsi's sword had glanced from the helm. No life had been left to Sigurd had a better hand wielded the weapon; but he was not badly hurt. I could not see Alsi anywhere, nor Eglaf.

Steadily the numbers drove us back, though before Havelok was always a space into which men hardly dared to come. The wedge was pushed away from us, and we had to fall back with it, until we crossed the stream; and there Sigurd swung the massed men into line, and then came the first pause in the fight. The two hosts stood, with the narrow water between them, and glared on each other, silent now. And then the bowmen began to get to work from either side, until the arrows were all gone.

Now Havelok called to the foe, and they were silent while he spoke to them.

"Is Alsi yet alive?" he said; "for if not, I have no war with his men. If he is, let me speak with him."

None answered for a while, and the men looked at each other as if they knew not if the man they were fighting for lived or not.

Then one came forward and said, "Alsi lives, and we have not done with you yet. Get you back to your home beyond the sea!"

And then they charged us again; but the water was a better front for us than it had been for them, and across it they could not win. We drove them back once and twice; and again came a time when both sides were wearied and must needs rest.

So it went on until night fell. We never stirred from that water's edge, and the stream was choked with valiant English and hardy Danes; and yet the attacks came with the shout of "Out! out!" and the answer from us of "Havelok, ahoy!"

At last one who seemed a great chief came and cried a truce, for night was falling; and he said that if Havelok would claim no advantage therefrom, the men of Lindsey would get back from the field, and leave it free for us to take our fallen.

"But I must have your word that with the end of that task you go back to the place you now hold, that we may begin afresh, if it seems good to us, in the morning."

Then said Havelok, "That is well spoken, and I cannot but agree. Who are you, however, for I must know that this is said with authority?"

"I am the Earl of Chester," he answered. "Alsi has set the leading of the host in my hands, for he is hurt somewhat."

"I did not think that Mercians would have troubled to fight to uphold Alsi of Lindsey in his ways with his niece," Havelok said.

"What is that?" said the earl. "Hither came I for love of fighting, maybe, in the first place; and next to drive out certain Vikings. I know naught of the business of which you speak."

"Then," said I, "go and ask Eglaf, the captain of the housecarls, for he knows all about it. We are no raiding Danes, but those who fight for Goldberga of East Anglia."

At that a hum of voices went down the English line, and this earl bit his lip in doubt.

"Well," he said, "that is Alsi's affair, and I will speak to him. We have had a good fight, and I will not say that either of us has the best of it. Shall it be as I have said?"

"Ay," answered Havelok; and the earl drew off his men for half a mile, and in the gathering dusk we crossed the brook, and went on our errand across the field. It was not hard to find our men, for they lay in a great wedge as we had fought. There had been no straggling from that array, and no break had been made in its lines. Alsi had lost more than we, for his men had beaten against that steel wall in vain, and the arms of the Northman are better than those of any other nation.

We took the wounded back to the camp, and there Goldberga and the wives of our English thanes tended them; and as we gathered up the slain the Lindsey men were among us at the same work, and we spoke to them as if naught was amiss between us, nor any fight to begin again in the morning. And then we learned how few knew what we had come for. It was with them as with the Earl of Chester. They had no knowledge of Goldberga's homecoming, and least of all thought that at the back of the trouble were the wiles of Alsi. It was two years ago that Goldberga had gone, and her wedding had seemed to end her story. Now the men heard and wondered; and it is said that very many left Alsi that night and went home, angry with him for his falsehood.

Now when all was done we sought rest, and weary we were. I will say for myself that I did not feel like fighting next morning at all, for I was tired out, and the one or two wounds that I had were getting sorely stiff. Raven was much in the same case, and grumbled, sailor-wise, at the weight of the banner and aught else that came uppermost in his mind. Yet I knew that he would be the first to go forward again when the time came.

The host slept on their arms along the bank of the stream through the hot night, and the banner was pitched in their midst. Soon the moon rose, and only the footsteps of the sentries along our front went up and down, while across the water was the same silence; for both hosts were wearied out, and each had learned that the other were true men, and there was no mistrust on either side. When the light came once more we should fight to prove who were the best men at arms, and with no hatred between us.

Presently the mists crept up from the stream and wreathed the sleepers on either bank with white, swaying clouds, and I mind that the last thought I had before I closed my eyes was that my armour would be rusted by the clinging damp--as if it were not war-stained from helm to deerskin shoe already with stains that needed more cleansing than any rust.

Then I waked suddenly, for someone went past me, and I sat up to see who it might be. The moon was very bright and high now, but the figure that I saw wading in the white mist was shadowy, and I could not tell who it was. And then another and yet another figure came from the rear of our line, and passed among the sleeping ranks, and joined the first noiselessly; and after a little while many came, hurrying, and they formed up on the bank of the stream into the mighty wedge. And I feared greatly, for not one of the sleepers stirred as the warriors went among us, and I had looked on the faces of those who passed me, and I knew that they were the dead whom I had seen the men gather even now and lay in their last rank beyond our line.

Then I saw that on the far bank was gathered another host, and that was of Alsi's men, and among them I knew the forms of some who had fallen in the first onset when I led the charge.

I tried to put forth my hand to wake Withelm, but I could not stir, and when I would have spoken, I could frame no word, so that alone in all the host I saw the slain men fight their battle over again, step by step. The wedge of the Northmen won to the far shore as we had won--as they had won in life but a few hours ago--and into the line of foemen they cut their way, and on the far side of the stream they stayed and fought, as it had been in the battle. Yet though one could see that the men shouted and cried, there was no sound at all, and among the wildest turmoil walked the sentries of Alsi's host unconcerned and unknowing. And to me they seemed to be the ghosts, and the phantom strife that which was real.

Then I was ware of a stranger thing yet than all I had seen so far, for on the field were more than those whom I knew. There stood watching on either side of the battle two other ghostly hosts, taking no part in the struggle, but watching it as we had watched from our place when we fell back into the rear to rest, pointing and seeming to cheer strokes that were good and deeds that were valiant. And I knew that these were men who had fought and died on this same field in older days, for on one side were the white-clad Britons, and on the other the stern, dark-faced Romans, steel and bronze from head to foot.

So the battle went onward to where we had won and had been pressed back; and then, little by little, the hosts faded away, and with them went the watchers, and surely across the field went the quick gallop of no earthly steeds, the passing to Odin of the choosers of the slain, the Valkyries.

Then came across the brook to me one through the mist, and the sentries paid no heed to him, and he came to my side and spoke to me. It was Cadwal, the Welsh thane, and his breast was gashed so that I thought that he could not have lived.

"Ay, I am dead," he said, "as men count death, and yet I would have part in victory over Alsi, for the sake of Havelok and of Goldberga. Stay up my body on the morrow, that I may seem to fight at least, that I may bide in the ranks once more in the day of victory. Little victory have the British seen since Hengist came. Say that you will do this."

Then he