Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell Page A

curse was dreadful, but Bjorn again spoke so dully that this second curse, like the first, was empty. The dead man’s eyes were closed, his chest still jerked and his hands made grasping motions at the cold air.
    I was in terror and I do not mind confessing it. It is a certainty in this world that the dead go to their long homes in the earth and stay there. Christians say our corpses will all rise one day and the air will be filled with the calling of angels’ horns and the sky will glow like beaten gold as the dead come from the ground, but I have never believed that. We die and we go to the afterworld and we stay there, butBjorn had come back. He had fought the winds of darkness and the tides of death and he had struggled back to this world and now he stood before us, gaunt and tall and filthy and croaking, and I was shivering. Finan had dropped to one knee. My other men were behind me, but I knew they would be shaking as I shook. Only Haesten seemed unaffected by the dead man’s presence. “Tell the Lord Uhtred,” he commanded Bjorn, “what the Norns told you.”
    The Norns are the Fates, the three women who spin life’s threads at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. Whenever a child is born they start a new thread, and they know where it will go, with what other threads it will weave, and how it will end. They know everything. They sit and they spin and they laugh at us, and sometimes they shower us with good fortune and sometimes they doom us to hurt and to tears.
    “Tell him,” Haesten commanded impatiently, “what the Norns said of him.”
    Bjorn said nothing. His chest heaved and his hands twitched. His eyes were closed.
    “Tell him,” Haesten said, “and I will give you back your harp.”
    “My harp,” Bjorn said pathetically, “I want my harp.”
    “I will put it back in your grave,” Haesten said, “and you can sing to the dead. But first speak to Lord Uhtred.”
    Bjorn opened his eyes and stared at me. I recoiled from those dark eyes, but made myself stare back, pretending a bravery I did not feel.
    “You are to be king, Lord Uhtred,” Bjorn said, then gave a long moan like a creature in pain. “You are to be king,” he sobbed.
    The wind was cold. A spit of rain touched my cheek. I said nothing.
    “King of Mercia,” Bjorn said in a sudden and surprisingly loud voice. “You are to be king of Saxon and of Dane, enemy of the Welsh, king between the rivers and lord of all you rule. You are to be mighty, Lord Uhtred, for the three spinners love you.” He stared at me and, though the fate he pronounced was golden, there was a malevolence in his dead eyes. “You will be king,” he said, and the last word sounded like poison on his tongue.
    My fear passed then, to be replaced by a surge of pride and power. Idid not doubt Bjorn’s message because the gods do not speak lightly, and the spinners know our fate. We Saxons say wyrd bi? ful ãræd, and even the Christians accept that truth. They might deny that the three Norns exist, but they know that wyrd bi? ful ãræd. Fate is inexorable. Fate cannot be changed. Fate rules us. Our lives are made before we live them, and I was to be King of Mercia.
    I did not think of Bebbanburg at that moment. Bebbanburg is my land, my fortress beside the northern sea, my home. I believed my whole life was dedicated to recovering it from my uncle, who had stolen it from me when I was a child. I dreamed of Bebbanburg, and in my dreams I saw its rocks splintering the gray sea white and felt the gales tear at the hall thatch, but when Bjorn spoke I did not think of Bebbanburg. I thought of being a king. Of ruling a land. Of leading a great army to crush my enemies.
    And I thought of Alfred, of the duty I owed him and the promises I had made him. I knew I must be an oath-breaker to be a king, but to whom are oaths made? To kings, and so a king has the power to release a man from an oath, and I told myself that as a king I could release myself from any oath, and