112.
112.
One piece of good news and one piece of bad news arrived at the same time.
They say every matter has its light and shadow, and indeed that turned out to be true.
Since I was the type of person who listened to the bad news first, I sat in the highest place (the third floor) of Tamworth, which had been somewhat stabilized by then — a building on the hilltop office overlooking the city — and together with Ubba, Refil, Seutorolpeu, Leon, and Oleg, I listened to the story the messenger laid out.
Burgred and all those who had declared they would follow him had set out on the road to Beodericsworth in East Anglia, so we too were in a situation where the most urgent matters had been roughly concluded.
As it happened, the messenger who reached us had also been sent by Sigebryht, who administered Beodericsworth, my direct holding in East Anglia.
"The Frankish Margrave, Boudewijn, has finally arrived."
After a long while, I'd had a deep sleep with a refreshed body and mind, and from the morning itself came news like this.
'Would I have to fight?'
Before my good mood plummeted entirely into the abyss, I decided to listen to the good news next.
"Halfdan has arrived? With four thousand warriors? This truly is glad tidings."
It seemed that Sigurdeu, having gotten pregnant before the wedding, would not have much freedom of movement under the watch of his mother Áslaug, so Halfdan had stepped forward instead.
Björn would be busy, as he told Halfdan to focus on the eastern front spanning from Árós to Novgorod and Kiyiu.
'He's newly wed, I wonder if this isn't asking him to do something he shouldn't have to.'
The three new bridegrooms of Ragnar's line. Myself, Halfdan, Sigurdeu.
I could be excused as I had to fulfill my duties as Konungr, but in truth, Halfdan, who had no direct stake in this Britain, must have wished to spend a sweeter, more lovey-dovey time with his wife...
'I'll have to give him a gift.'
[tap- tap- tap-]
I was tapping the armrest of the chair, thinking about what gift to give Halfdan, when Ubba, mistaking this for the Konungr's deep anguish, asked me in a low voice.
"Helgi. If it were the Frankish Konungr himself coming, that would be one thing, but isn't it somewhat strange that he sent only the Margrave of Flanders?"
"Hm?"
Thanks to that, I was pulled back to reality and quickly mulled over Ubba's words, and indeed, something didn't quite add up.
"You're right. It seems this Karl of West Frankia is looking down on us quite severely."
Saying 'the Frankish Margrave' made it sound somewhat impressive, but in truth, Flanders was almost like a hostel for us Northmen.
The master of that place, Boudewijn, was called 'the Iron Arm' and was said to be expanding his power through the entirety of Flanders and beyond...
But for those who knew a bit more about the circumstances, that was an entirely different story.
The hidden truth behind Boudewijn's surge of triumphs was that he had the tolerance of Karl, the Konungr of West Frankia, along with the cooperation of Hrørekr, the powerful Northman lord of Dorestat, which lay right next to Flanders.
Before I appeared, the Northman forces were spread out like grains of sand along the shores, and truly countless Northman parties had entered wherever water routes reached.
Merchants and raiders, impossible to catch no matter how hard one tried... yes. Like mosquitoes, these Norsquitoes were a disaster itself for the kings of the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
One of the strategies to defend against this was to give large amounts of money and land to Northmen famous for fighting well, appointing them as lords of river inlets or coastal lands that allowed entry into the interior, and then making them defend those places themselves.
Two representative figures of this were Hestein of Nantes and that Hrørekr of Dorestat.
Therefore, following Ubba's words, we Northmen, who knew well the general circumstances regarding the Franks' northern coasts, could only tilt our heads in confusion.
The Frankish coast we had used when striking Northumbria — wasn't that also a place touched by Hrørekr's influence?
Dorestat was not merely a single city, but a bridge and trading city connecting Britain, northern Frankia, and Scandinavia.
So it went without saying that the power it held was no ordinary thing.
Although Hrørekr was nominally a subordinate of Karl, the Konungr of West Frankia, and thus did not attend my wedding in person, he had sent a man and even a gift. Would he now have a reason to turn his back on me?
In the end, it would be a mystery that could only be solved by meeting this 'Iron Arm' Boudewijn face to face.
"Insolent wretches...! The warriors will never overlook this discourtesy toward the Konungr...! Give us but the command, Konungr!"
"We will rush over at once and blow their heads off!"
Seutorolpeu's and Oleg's nostrils flared; even among Northmen, who could generally be considered straightforward, they belonged to the hot-blooded category.
sssshhh- sssshhh-
"Calm down, both of you. They haven't shown any movement yet."
Having calmed them down as they breathed roughly like aurochs, I signaled with my eyes to Ubba and Refil.
"Ubba is right. If they had intended to fight us in earnest, Hrørekr of Dorestat would have moved with them. Since his name is not being heard, there must be circumstances I don't know about..."
"Be that as it may, the fact that their forces and the Frankish Jarl crossed the strait does not change."
Ubba, who in the course of fierce battles had steadily added seasoned authority to his innate cool-headedness, received my words in a calm tone. Ubba, more and more reminded me of Björn.
Our eldest brother Björn was now showing a loosened demeanor, throwing a fit about retiring, but according to our second brother Ivar, he had been something of an idol figure in the generation just above me.
The fact that such a man came to mind must have meant that Ubba had grown.
"If Wessex intends to move, they could come up north and meet us, or they could move east and strike East Anglia."
Ubba moved the cross-shaped wood carving symbolizing Wessex this way and that over the map depicting southern Britain. Watching that sight, I thought that Wessex's situation must truly be a difficult one too.
Mercia, which could be called their one and only ally, was now essentially finished, and from a broader view, they were surrounded by enemies on three sides: north, west, and east.
Moreover, given the nature of an island nation, the only remaining side, the south, was the sea.
[swish- swish-]
Ubba placed an ax carving upon each of the Catholic crosses deployed to the north and to the east of Wessex.
His voice, as he spoke while striking down these axes, was practically a declaration of checkmate.
"But if they truly move, they will find it to be a great mistake. For if they attack the east, we shall push them from the north; if they attack the north, we shall push them from the east."
That was what Halfdan's reinforcements were for. I in Mercia, Halfdan in East Anglia.
Even if Wessex miraculously won a battle on one front, we had built a structure that would ultimately force them to collapse.
"And we must not forget our friends in the west."
Though one year older than me, my nephew Refil, who was in fact of the same generation as Ubba and me, also placed a small wooden ax on the west of Wessex, above Cornwall.
"Rhodri of Cymry has moved south from Ceorlburg, which he swallowed up, and Jarl Hestein has done the same. Soon, the western part of Wessex will be set ablaze. Konungr."
If Ubba reminded one of Björn, Refil was simply Björn's younger days reincarnated.
From the way he spoke to the steel in his bearing. At my rock-solid chief of staff's words I remained silent, looking down from the map at Wessex as it stood against the three axes.
'Digesting Mercia is already a struggle as it is. To cut Wessex's throat now, the Franks have thrown themselves in, and above all I have to consider the men's fatigue.'
We had already surpassed our primary objective of seizing the eastern coastline of Britain and achieved our secondary objective, the conquest of Mercia.
Halfdan, who had just crossed the sea, and the four thousand men of the second class from the Árós Training Camp would be itching to fight, but my own personal troops who had crossed with me first, and the first class who had followed Oleg across the sea, had already accumulated a fair amount of battle fatigue.
Deep down, I wanted to put a period on the war in southern Britain right here and then head north with the forces Halfdan had brought, but—
—all of that could only be answered once I met the Cyning of Wessex and the Frankish Margrave.
So I decided to move, once again.
"Whether it be battle or negotiation, we must clash at least once. And if that is the case, I will not let Wessex have the initiative."
"That means...?"
"Refil, prepare to march. We leave a thousand men to hold Tamworth and move the rest south. The target is Wælingford, in Wessex."
"Yes! Konungr!"
Six thousand had fought Burgred, and after entering Tamworth that number had swelled to nine thousand.
The magic of fighting: the more you fight, the more your army grows.
Of course, the troops that truly met my eye as elite numbered only five thousand, but in war it is raw numbers that count.
I would march south with eight thousand men and pose a question to Wessex.
Will you fight, or will you stop here?
"Ubba, I'll need a messenger sent to Halfdan. Tell him to begin advancing from East Anglia as well. The objective is to march along the coast through Sutton Hoo and Colchester and form an encampment near Lundenwic."
"It shall be done. Konungr."
"Good."
Very good. It was time to move again.
*****
Western Wessex, Devon.
In the east, the terror of the fearsome Northman king they called the Dragon of the North, Helgi Ragnarsson, pressed down upon the people of Wessex.
But here, the people of Devon carried on with their lives as they always did.
The high and mighty lived tangled in the affairs of God and the Cyning in Winchester, but in these fishing hamlets of Britain's western coast—where there was nothing worth plundering—the struggle was to earn one day's bread and live by it.
Today, the fishermen would go out to fish, the farmers would tend the crops beginning to sprout and the livestock, the children would lend a hand and occasionally dash about the hills; that same old daily round would go on.
Or it would have, if not for the uninvited guests who suddenly reared their heads from the distant sea.
"Is that... a ship?"
"It's not just one...! The enemy! The Northmen have come!"
"Ring the bell! Evacuate everyone! Inform the Ealdorman at once!"
In the midst of the panic, the hardy people of Devon, who had already weathered such things multiple times, acted with quick wits, and soon the news reached the ears of the Lord of Devon, Odda.
A warrior who had faced and driven off Northmen raiders time and again, and the great lord of the west who held the complete trust of Æthelred Cyning.
Oda of Devon moved swiftly, leading his warriors, and soon surveyed the enemy host that seemed to cover the sea.
'This is no mere raid. The numbers are far too many...!'
Where in the world had they brought so many warriors from? Did the beasts of the Northmen give birth to two or three children at a time?
Something about this made no sense, yet Odda's mind churned fiercely for a way to survive.
'If we meet them on an open field, we all die...! We have to hold and block them. But if we fall back, I have no idea how far we must fall, so we must buy time however we can...! So that the Cyning and the Frankish reinforcements can move...!'
Yet no matter how battle-tested and shrewd a man was, a long deliberation could still end in a poor hand.
"Move quickly! Let all the people evacuate to Somerset, and let those who can fight follow me!"
"Yes! Ealdorman!"
Crying children and fussing mothers. People hurried out, backs laden and both arms full of household goods.
Having felt that war had finally found him, the Lord of Devon chose a hill-fort a little distance from the coast as his line of defense, and its name was Cynwit.
*****
"Have they taken leave of their senses?"
Jarl Hestein, under the command of the great warrior, Konungr Helgi Ragnarsson, was doubting his own two eyes.
When he first heard the report from his old subordinate and excellent scout who served as his lieutenant, he had angrily told him to please stop drinking, but—
—seeing it with his own eyes, he was on the verge of suspecting that what he had drunk this morning might have been ale rather than water.
'Am I drunk and seeing phantoms...?'
"Hffff— haaaa— hffff— haaaa—"
'No, I'm not...?'
Even when he cupped his palm and blew his breath, it carried no smell of drink, only the scent of well-salted jerky.
"Tell me, Artos. What do you make of it? A trap?"
He posed the question to Artos, the general whom King Rhodri of the Cymry had personally named commander of this campaign in recognition of the courage with which he had come and gone through the enemy lines of Mercia as if they were his own home. But Artos, giving his answer, looked equally bewildered.
"If making camp on a hill with no water is a trap, then I would gladly fall for it a hundred times over. Jarl Hestein."
"Aye, that's so... so it is."
For whatever reason, the warriors of Wessex had raised their defenses on a hill with no water to be had.
☆☆☆☆☆ See References ☆☆☆☆☆
Major George Allen (1891-1940), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
??? : Ah— I feel like hiking—!
There are a ton of hillforts like this in Britain, heh. Kind of like how we have a lot of mountain fortresses in our country, right!
But Britain doesn't really have rugged mountain ranges like our country, so they've got lots of these hilly hillforts instead...!
The class of our mountain fortresses, though... just having to climb a high mountain for a siege is agony itself...!
Midland_Map_-_5_Boroughs_912_AD.PNG: Robin Boulby.The original uploader was Robinboulby at English Wikipedia.derivative work: Hoodinski, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
These are the advance routes Helgi drew up!
If the numbers are off he'll fight, but for now he's planned a pressure march!
From Tamworth downward, from Beodericsworth along the coast to Lundenwic—that is, London!
Wessex will have to choose...!
Philg88; Attribution: Wikimedia Foundation (www.wikimedia.org), CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Actually, the real problem is here...!
The attack by Jarl Hestein and Artos of the Cymry...! It was originally just a light order to keep them in check, but a seasoned Jarl who has caught a thick scent of victory—will he really...?