Читать книгу Sword of Kings - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 10

We took Spearhafoc home. It was not easy. Gerbruht had slowed the leak, yet still the sleek hull wallowed in the afternoon seas. I had a dozen men bailing her and feared that worsening weather might doom her, but the gusting wind was kind, settling into a steady westerly, and the fretting sea calmed and Spearhafoc’s wolf-sail carried us slowly north. It was dusk when we reached the Farnea Islands and limped between them and a western sky that was a red-streaked furnace of savage fire against which Bebbanburg’s ramparts were outlined black. It was a weary crew that rowed the stricken ship through the narrow channel into Bebbanburg’s harbour. We beached Spearhafoc, and in the morning I would assemble teams of oxen to drag her above the tideline where her bows could be mended. Banamaðr and the captured ship followed us through the channel.

I had talked with Father Ceolnoth as we laboured home, but he had proved sullen and unhelpful. Wistan, the young man who had believed his god wanted my death, had been miserable and equally unhelpful. I had asked them both who had sent them north to kill me, and neither would answer. I had released Wistan from the mast and showed him a heap of captured swords. ‘You can take one and try to kill me again,’ I told him. He blushed when my men laughed and urged him to accept the offer, but he made no attempt to do his god’s work. Instead he just sat in the scuppers until Gerbruht told him to start bailing. ‘You want to live, boy? Start slinging water!’

‘Your father,’ I spoke to Father Ceolnoth, ‘is Ceolberht?’

He seemed surprised that I knew, though in truth it had been a guess. ‘Yes,’ he said curtly.

‘I knew him as a boy.’

‘He told me,’ the priest said, a pause, then, ‘lord.’

‘He didn’t like me then,’ I said, ‘and I daresay he dislikes me still.’

‘Our God teaches us to forgive,’ he said, though in the bitter tone some Christian priests use when they are forced to admit an uncomfortable truth.

‘So where is your father now?’ I asked.

He stayed silent for a while, then evidently decided his answer revealed no secrets. ‘My father serves God in Wintanceaster’s minster. So does my uncle.’

‘I’m glad they both live!’ I said, though that was not true because I disliked both men. They were twins from Mercia, as alike to each other as two apples. They had been hostages with me, caught by the Danes, and while Ceolnoth and Ceolberht had resented that fate, I had welcomed it. I liked the Danes, but the twins were fervent Christians, sons of a bishop, and they had been taught that all pagans were the devil’s spawn. After their release from captivity they had both studied for the priesthood and grew to become passionate haters of paganism. Fate had decreed that our paths should cross often enough, and they had ever despised me, calling me an enemy of the church and worse, and I had finally repaid an insult by kicking out most of Father Ceolberht’s teeth. Ceolnoth bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, but I had guessed that the toothless Ceolberht would name his son after his brother. And so he had.

‘So what is the son of a toothless father doing in Northumbrian waters?’ I had asked him.

‘God’s work,’ was all he would say.

‘Torturing and killing fishermen?’ I asked, and to that question the priest had no answer.

We had taken prisoner those men who appeared to be the leaders of the defeated ships, and that night they were imprisoned in an empty stable that was guarded by my men, but I had invited Father Ceolnoth and the misery-stricken Wistan to eat in the great hall. It was not a feast, most of the garrison had eaten earlier, so the meal was just for the men who had crewed the ships. The only woman present, besides the serving girls, was Eadith my wife, and I sat Father Ceolnoth to her left. I did not like the priest, but I accorded him the dignity of his office, a gesture I regretted as soon as he took his place at the high table’s bench. He raised his hands to the smoke-darkened rafters and began to pray in a loud and piercing voice. I suppose it was brave of him, but it was the bravery of a fool. He asked his god to rain fire on this ‘pestilential fortress’, to lay it waste, and to defeat the abominations that lurked inside its ramparts. I let him rant for a moment, asked him to be silent, and, when he just raised his voice and begged his god to consign us to the devil’s cesspit, I beckoned to Berg. ‘Take the holy bastard to the pigs,’ I said, ‘and chain him there. He can preach to the sows.’

Berg dragged the priest from the hall, and my men, even the Christians, cheered. Wistan, I noticed, watched silently and sadly. He intrigued me. His helmet and mail, which were now mine, were of quality workmanship and suggested that Wistan was nobly-born. I also sensed that, for all his foolishness, he was a thoughtful young man. I pointed him out to Eadith, my wife. ‘When we’re done,’ I told her, ‘we’ll take him to the chapel.’

‘The chapel!’ she sounded surprised.

‘He probably wants to pray.’

‘Just kill the pup,’ Egil put in cheerfully.

‘I think he’ll talk,’ I said. We had learned much from the other prisoners. The small fleet of four ships had been assembled at Dumnoc in East Anglia and was crewed by a mix of men from that port, other East Anglian harbours, and from Wessex. Mostly from Wessex. The men were paid well and had been offered a reward if they succeeded in killing me. The leaders of the fleet, we learned, had been Father Ceolnoth, the boy Wistan and a West Saxon warrior named Egbert. I had never heard of Egbert, though the prisoners claimed he was a famed warrior. ‘A big man, lord,’ one had told me, ‘even taller than you! A scarred face!’ the prisoner had shuddered in remembered fear.

‘Was he on the ship that sank?’ I had asked. We had not captured anyone resembling Egbert’s description so I assumed he was dead.

‘He was on the Hælubearn, lord, the small ship.’

Hælubearn meant ‘child of healing’, but it was also a term the Christians used for themselves, and I wondered if all four ships had carried pious names. I suspected they did because another prisoner, clutching a wooden cross hanging at his breast, said that Father Ceolnoth had promised every man that they would go straight to heaven with all their sins forgiven if they succeeded in slaughtering me. ‘Why would Egbert be on the smallest ship?’ I had wondered aloud.

‘It was the fastest, lord,’ the first prisoner told me. ‘Those other boats are pigs to sail. Hælubearn might be small, but she’s nimble.’

‘Meaning he could escape if there was trouble,’ I had commented sourly, and the prisoners just nodded.

I reckoned I would learn nothing from Father Ceolnoth, but Wistan, I thought, was vulnerable to kindness and so, when the meal was over, Eadith and I took the boy to Bebbanburg’s chapel, which is built on a lower ledge of rock beside the great hall. It is made of timber like most of the fortress, but the Christians among my men had laid a flagstone floor which they had covered with rugs. The chapel is not large, maybe twenty paces long and half as wide. There are no windows, just a wooden altar at the eastern end, a scattering of milking stools, and a bench against the western wall. Three of the walls are hung with plain woollen cloths that block the draughts, while on the altar is a silver cross, kept well polished, and two large candles which are permanently lit.

Wistan seemed bemused when I led him inside. He glanced nervously at Eadith who, like him, wore a cross. ‘Lord?’ he asked nervously.

I sat on the bench and leaned against the wall. ‘We thought you might want to pray,’ I said.

‘It’s a consecrated space,’ Eadith reassured the boy.

‘We have a priest too,’ I added. ‘Father Cuthbert. He’s a friend and he lives in the fortress here. He’s blind and old and some days he feels unwell and then he asks the priest from the village to take his place.’

‘There’s a church in the village,’ Eadith said. ‘You can go there tomorrow.’

Wistan was now thoroughly confused. He had been taught that I was Uhtred the Wicked, a stubborn pagan, an enemy of his church and a priest-killer, yet now I was showing him a Christian chapel inside my fortress and talking to him of Christian priests. He stared at me, then at Eadith, and had nothing to say.

I rarely carried Serpent-Breath when I was inside Bebbanburg, but I had Wasp-Sting at my hip and now I drew the short-sword, turned her so that the hilt was towards Wistan, then slid the blade across the flagstones. ‘Your god says you must kill me. Why don’t you?’

‘Lord …’ he said, then had nothing more to say.

‘You told me you were sent to rid the world of my wickedness,’ I pointed out. ‘You know they call me Uhtredærwe?’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said, scarce above a whisper.

‘Uhtred the priest-killer?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘I have killed priests,’ I said, ‘and monks.’

‘Not on purpose,’ Eadith put in.

‘Sometimes on purpose,’ I said, ‘but usually in anger.’ I shrugged. ‘Tell me what else you know about me.’

Wistan hesitated, then found his courage. ‘You are a pagan, lord, and a warlord. You are friends with the heathen, you encourage them!’ He hesitated again.

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Men say you want Æthelstan to be king in Wessex because you have bewitched him. That you will use him to take the throne for yourself!’

‘Is that all?’ I asked, amused.

He had not been looking at me, but now raised his eyes to gaze into mine. ‘They say you killed Æthelhelm the Elder and that you forced his daughter to marry your son. That she was raped! Here, in your fortress.’ He had anger on his face and tears in his eyes and, for a heartbeat, I thought he would snatch up Wasp-Sting.

Then Eadith laughed. She said nothing, just laughed, and her apparent amusement puzzled Wistan. Eadith was looking quizzically at me, and I nodded. She knew what the nod meant and so went into the windswept night. The candles fluttered wildly as she opened and closed the door, but they stayed lit. They were the only illumination in the small chapel, so Wistan and I spoke in near darkness. ‘It’s a rare day when there’s no wind,’ I said mildly. ‘Wind and rain, rain and wind, Bebbanburg’s weather.’

He said nothing.

‘Tell me,’ I said, still sitting beside the chapel wall, ‘how did I kill Ealdorman Æthelhelm?’

‘How would I know, lord?’

‘How do men in Wessex say that he died?’ He did not answer. ‘You are from Wessex?’

‘Yes, lord,’ he muttered.

‘Then tell me what men in Wessex say about Ealdorman Æthelhelm’s death.’

‘They say he was poisoned, lord.’

I half smiled. ‘By a pagan sorcerer?’

He shrugged. ‘You would know, lord, not me.’

‘Then, Wistan of Wessex,’ I went on, ‘let me tell you what I do know. I did not kill Ealdorman Æthelhelm. He died of the fever despite all the care we gave him. He received the last rites of your church. His daughter was with him when he died, and she was neither raped nor forced into marriage with my son.’

He said nothing. The light of the big candles flickered their reflection from Wasp-Sting’s blade. The night wind rattled the chapel door and sighed about the roof. ‘Tell me what you know of Prince Æthelstan,’ I said.

‘That he is a bastard,’ Wistan said, ‘and would take the throne from Ælfweard.’

‘Ælfweard,’ I said, ‘who is nephew to the present Ealdorman Æthelhelm, and is King Edward’s second oldest son. Does Edward still live?’

‘Praise God, yes.’

‘And Ælfweard is his second son, yet you claim he should be king after his father.’

‘He is the ætheling, lord.’

‘The eldest son is the ætheling,’ I pointed out.

‘And in the eyes of God the king’s eldest son is Ælfweard,’ Wistan insisted, ‘because Æthelstan is a bastard.’

‘A bastard,’ I repeated.

‘Yes, lord,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘I’ll introduce you to Father Cuthbert. You’ll like him! I keep him safe in this fortress, do you know why?’ Wistan shook his head. ‘Because many years ago,’ I went on, ‘Father Cuthbert was foolish enough to marry the young Prince Edward to a pretty Centish girl, the daughter of a bishop. That girl died in childbirth, but she left twin children, Eadgyth and Æthelstan. I say Father Cuthbert was foolish because Edward did not have his father’s permission to marry, but nevertheless the marriage was consecrated by a Christian priest in a Christian church. And those who would deny Æthelstan his true inheritance have been trying to silence Father Cuthbert ever since. They would kill him, Wistan, so that the truth is never known, and that is why I keep him safe in this fortress.’

‘But …’ he began, and again he had nothing to say. For his whole life, which I guessed was about twenty years, he had been told by everyone in Wessex that Æthelstan was a bastard, and that Ælfweard was the true heir to Edward’s throne. He had believed that lie, he had believed that Æthelstan was whelped on a whore, and now I was destroying that belief. He believed me, and he did not want to believe me, and so he said nothing.

‘And you believe your god sent you to kill me?’ I asked.

He still said nothing. He just gazed at the sword that lay by his feet.

I laughed. ‘My wife is a Christian, my son is a Christian, my oldest and closest friend is a Christian, and over half my men are Christians. Wouldn’t your god have asked one of them to kill me instead of sending you? Why send you all the way from Wessex when there are a hundred or more Christians here who can strike me down?’ He neither moved nor spoke. ‘The fisherman you tortured and killed was also a Christian,’ I said.

He started at that and shook his head. ‘I tried to stop that, but Edgar …’

His voice tailed away to silence, but I had noted the very slight hesitation before the name Edgar. ‘Edgar isn’t his real name, is it?’ I asked. ‘Who is he?’

But the church door creaked open before he could answer, and Eadith led Ælswyth into the wind-fluttering candlelight. Ælswyth stopped as soon as she entered, she stared at Wistan, and then she smiled with delight.

Ælswyth is my daughter-in-law, the daughter of my enemy, and sister to his son, who hates me as much as his father did. Her father, Æthelhelm the Elder, planned to make her a queen, to exchange her beauty for some throne in Christendom, but my son gained her first and she had lived at Bebbanburg ever since. To look at her was to think that no girl so wan, so pale and thin could survive the harsh winters and brutal winds of Northumbria, let alone the agonies of childbirth, yet Ælswyth had given me two grandsons and she alone in the fortress seemed immune to the aches, sneezes, shivers, and coughs that marked our winter months. She looked frail, but was as strong as steel. Her face, so lovely, lit with joy when she saw Wistan. She had a smile that could melt the heart of a beast, but Wistan did not smile back, instead he just gaped at her as if shocked.

‘Æthelwulf!’ Eadith exclaimed and went towards him with open arms.

‘Æthelwulf!’ I repeated, amused. The name meant ‘noble wolf’ and the young man who had called himself Wistan might look noble, yet he looked anything but wolflike.

Æthelwulf blushed. He let Ælswyth embrace him, then looked at me sheepishly. ‘I am Æthelwulf,’ he admitted, and in a tone that suggested I should recognise the name.

‘My brother!’ Ælswyth said happily. ‘My youngest brother!’ It was then she saw Wasp-Sting on the stone floor and frowned, looking to me for an explanation.

‘Your brother,’ I said, ‘was sent to kill me.’

‘Kill you?’ Ælswyth sounded shocked.

‘In revenge for the way we treated you,’ I continued. ‘Weren’t you raped and forced into an unwanted marriage?’

‘No!’ she protested.

‘And all that,’ I said, ‘after I had murdered your father.’

Ælswyth looked up into her brother’s face. ‘Our father died of the fever!’ she said fiercely, ‘I was with him through the whole illness. And no one raped me, no one forced me to marry. I love this place!’

Poor Æthelwulf. He looked as if the foundations of his life had just been ripped away. He believed Ælswyth of course, how could he not? There was joy on her face and enthusiasm in her voice, while Æthelwulf looked as if he was about to cry.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ I said to Eadith, then turned to Ælswyth. ‘And you two can talk.’

‘We shall!’ Ælswyth said.

‘I’ll send a servant to show you where you can sleep,’ I told Æthelwulf, ‘but you do know you’re a prisoner here?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lord.’

‘An honoured prisoner,’ I said, ‘but if you try to leave the fortress, that will change.’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said again.

I picked up Wasp-Sting, patted my prisoner on the shoulder, and went to bed. It had been a long day.

So Æthelhelm the Younger had sent his youngest brother to kill me. He had equipped a fleet, and offered gold to the crew, and placed a rancid priest on the ships to inspire Æthelwulf with righteous anger. Æthelhelm knew it would be next to impossible to kill me while I stayed inside the fortress and knew too that he could not send sufficient men to ambush me on my lands without those men being discovered and slaughtered by Northumbria’s warriors, so he had been clever. He had sent men to ambush me at sea.

Æthelwulf was the fleet’s leader, but Æthelhelm knew that his brother, though imbued with the family’s hatred for me, was not the most ruthless of men, and so he had sent Father Ceolnoth to fill Æthelwulf with holy stupidity, and he had also sent the man they called Edgar. Except that was not his real name. Æthelhelm had wanted no one to know of the fleet’s true allegiance, or to connect my death to his orders. He had hoped the blame would be placed on piracy, or on some passing Norse ship, and so he had commanded the leaders to use any name except their own. Æthelwulf had become Wistan, and I learned that Edgar was really Waormund.

I knew Waormund. He was a huge West Saxon, a brutal man, with a slab face scarred from his right eyebrow to his lower left jaw. I remembered his eyes, dead as stone. In battle Waormund was a man you would want standing beside you because he was capable of terrible violence, but he was also a man who revelled in that savagery. A strong man, even taller than me, and implacable. He was a warrior, and, though you might want his help in a battle, no one but a fool would want Waormund as an enemy. ‘Why,’ I asked Æthelwulf the next morning, ‘was Waormund in your smallest ship?’

‘I ordered him into that ship, lord, because I wanted him gone! He’s not a Christian.’

‘He’s a pagan?’

‘He’s a beast. It was Waormund who tortured the captives. I tried to stop him.’

‘But Father Ceolnoth encouraged him?’

‘Yes.’ Æthelwulf nodded miserably. We were walking on Bebbanburg’s seaward ramparts. The sun glittered from an empty sea and a small wind brought the smell of seaweed and salt. ‘I tried to stop Waormund,’ Æthelwulf went on, ‘and he cursed me and he cursed God.’

‘He cursed your god?’ I asked, amused.

Æthelwulf made the sign of the cross. ‘I said God would not forgive his cruelty, and he said God was far more cruel than man. So I ordered him into Hælubearn because I couldn’t abide his company.’

I walked on a few paces. ‘I know your brother hates me,’ I said, ‘but why send you north to kill me? Why now?’

‘Because he knows you swore an oath to kill him,’ Æthelwulf said, and that answer shocked me. I had indeed sworn that oath, but I had thought it was a secret between Æthelstan and myself, yet Æthelhelm knew of that oath. How? No wonder Æthelhelm wanted me dead before I attempted to fulfil the oath.

My sworn enemy’s brother looked at me nervously. ‘Is it true, lord?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not until King Edward dies.’

Æthelwulf had flinched when I told him that brutal truth. ‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Why kill my brother?’

‘Did you ask your brother why he wanted to kill me?’ I retorted angrily. ‘Don’t answer, I know why. Because he believes I killed your father, and because I’m Uhtredærwe the Pagan, Uhtred the Priest-Killer.’

‘Yes, lord,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Your brother has tried to kill Æthelstan,’ I said, ‘and he’s tried to kill me, and you wonder why I want to kill him?’ He said nothing to that. ‘Tell me what happens when Edward dies?’ I asked harshly.

‘I pray he lives,’ Æthelwulf said, making the sign of the cross. ‘He was in Mercia when I left, lord, but had taken to his bed. The priests visited him.’

‘To give him the last rites?’

‘So they said, lord, but he’s recovered before.’

‘So what happens if he doesn’t recover?’

He paused, unwilling to give the answer he knew I did not want to hear. ‘When he dies, lord,’ he made the sign of the cross again, ‘Ælfweard becomes King of Wessex.’

‘And Ælfweard is your nephew,’ I said, ‘and Ælfweard is a sparrow-witted piece of shit, but if he becomes king, your brother thinks he can control him, and he thinks he can rule Wessex through Ælfweard. There’s just one problem, isn’t there? That Æthelstan’s parents really were married, which means Æthelstan is no bastard, so when Edward dies there’ll be civil war. Saxon against Saxon, Christian against Christian, Ælfweard against Æthelstan. And long ago I swore an oath to protect Æthelstan. I sometimes wish I hadn’t.’

He stopped in surprise. ‘You do, lord?’

‘Truly,’ I said, and explained no further. I drew him on, pacing the long rampart. It was true I had sworn an oath to protect Æthelstan, but increasingly I was not certain that I liked him. He was too pious, too like his grandfather, and, I also knew, too ambitious. There is nothing wrong with ambition. Æthelstan’s grandfather, King Alfred, had been a man of ambition, and Æthelstan had inherited his grandfather’s dreams, and those dreams meant uniting the kingdoms of Saxon Britain. Wessex had invaded East Anglia, it had swallowed Mercia, and it was no secret that Wessex wished to rule Northumbria, my Northumbria, the last British kingdom where men and women were free to worship as they wished. Æthelstan had sworn never to invade Northumbria while I lived, but how long could that be? No man lives for ever, and I was already old, and I feared that by supporting Æthelstan I was condemning my country to the rule of southern kings and their grasping bishops. Yet I had sworn an oath to the man most likely to make that happen.

I am a Northumbrian and Northumbria is my country. My people are Northumbrians, and Northumbrians are a hard, tough people, yet we are a small country. To our north lies Alba, full of ambitious Scots who raid us, revile us, and want our land. To the west lies Ireland, home to Norsemen who are never satisfied with the land they have, and always want more. The Danes are restless across the eastern sea, and they have never relinquished their claim to my land where so many Danes have already settled. So to the east, to the west, and to the north we have enemies, and we are a small country. And to the south are Saxons, folk who speak our language, and they too want Northumbria.

Alfred had always believed that all the folk who speak the English language should live in the same country, a country he dreamed of, a country called Englaland. And fate, that bitch who controls our lives, had meant I had fought for Alfred and his dream. I had killed Danes, I had killed Norsemen, and every death, every stroke of the sword, had extended the rule of the Saxons. Northumbria, I knew, could not survive. She was too small. The Scots wanted the land, but the Scots had other enemies; they were fighting the Norsemen of Strath Clota and of the Isles, and those enemies distracted King Constantin. The Norse of Ireland were fearsome, but could rarely agree on one leader, though that did not stop their dragon-headed ships crossing the Irish Sea bringing warriors to settle on Northumbria’s wild western coast. The Danes were more cautious about Britain now, the Saxons had become too strong, and so the Danish boats went further south in search of easier prey. And the Saxons were getting stronger. So one day, I knew, Northumbria would fall, and it was likely, in my judgement, to fall to the Saxons. I did not want that, but to fight against it was to draw a sword against fate, and if that fate was inevitable, and I believed it was, then it was better that Æthelstan should inherit Wessex. Ælfweard was my enemy. His family hated me, and if he took Northumbria he would bring the whole might of Saxon Britain against Bebbanburg. Æthelstan had sworn to protect me, as I had sworn to protect him.

‘He’s using you!’ Eadith had told me bitterly when I confessed to her that I had sworn to kill Æthelhelm the Younger on King Edward’s death.

‘Æthelstan is?’

‘Of course! And why are you helping him? He’s not your friend.’

‘I like him well enough.’

‘But does he like you?’ she had demanded.

‘I swore an oath to protect him.’

‘Men and oaths! You think Æthelstan will keep his oath? You believe he won’t invade Northumbria?’

‘Not while I live.’

‘He’s a fox!’ Eadith had said. ‘He’s ambitious! He wants to be King of Wessex, King of Mercia, King of East Anglia, king of everything! And he doesn’t care who or what he destroys to get what he wants. Of course he’ll break his oath! He never married!’

I stared at her. ‘What has that to do with it?’

She had looked frustrated. ‘He has no love!’ she had insisted and looked puzzled by my lack of understanding. ‘His mother died giving birth to him.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘Everyone knows the devil marks those babies!’

‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ I retorted.

‘You’re different,’ she had said. ‘I don’t trust him. And you should stay here when Edward dies!’ That had been her final word, spoken bitterly. Eadith was a strong, clever woman, and only a fool ignores such a woman’s advice, yet her anger aroused a fury in me. I knew she was right, but I was stubborn, and her resentment only made me more determined to keep the oath.

Finan had agreed with Eadith. ‘If you go south I’ll come with you,’ the Irishman had told me, ‘but we shouldn’t be going.’

‘You want Æthelhelm to live?’

‘I’d like to poke his eyeballs out by shoving Soul-Stealer up his rotten arse,’ Finan had said, speaking of his sword. ‘But I’d rather leave that pleasure to Æthelstan.’

‘I swore an oath.’

‘You’re my lord,’ he had said, ‘but you’re still a bloody fool. When do we leave?’

‘As soon as we hear of Edward’s death.’

For a year I had been expecting one of Æthelstan’s warriors to come from the south bringing news of a king’s death, but three days after I had first spoken with Æthelwulf a priest came instead. He found me in Bebbanburg’s harbour where Spearhafoc, newly repaired, was being launched. It was a hot day and I was stripped to the waist, helping the men who pushed the sleek hull down the beach. At first the priest did not believe I was Lord Uhtred, but Æthelwulf, who was with me and who was dressed as a nobleman, assured him I was indeed the ealdorman.

King Edward, the priest told me, still lived, ‘God be praised,’ he added. The priest was young, tired, and saddle sore. His horse was a fine mare, but like the rider she was dusty, sweat-soaked, and bone weary. The priest had ridden hard.

‘You rode all this way to tell me the king still lives?’ I asked harshly.

‘No, lord, I rode to bring you a message.’

I heard his message, and next day, at dawn, I went south.

I left Bebbanburg with just five men for company. Finan, of course, was one, while the other four were all good warriors, sword-skilled and loyal. I left the priest who had brought me the message in Bebbanburg and told my son, who had returned from the hills and was to command the garrison while I was away, to guard him well. I did not want the priest’s news spreading. I also gave my son instructions to keep Æthelwulf as an honoured prisoner. ‘He might be an innocent fool,’ I said, ‘but I still don’t want him riding south to warn his brother that I’m coming.’

‘His brother will know anyway,’ Finan had said drily. ‘He already knows you’re sworn to kill him!’

And that, I thought as I pounded the long road to Eoferwic, was strange. Æthelstan and I had sworn oaths to each other and agreed to keep those oaths secret. I had broken that agreement by telling Eadith, Finan, my son, and his wife, but I trusted all of them to keep the secret. So if Æthelhelm knew, then Æthelstan must have told someone, who, in turn, had told Æthelhelm of the threat, and that suggested there were spies in Æthelstan’s employment. That was no surprise, indeed I would have been astonished if Æthelhelm did not have men reporting to him from Mercia, but it did mean my enemy was forewarned of the threat I posed.

There was one last person I needed to tell of my oath, and I knew he would not be happy. I was right. He was furious.

Sigtryggr had been my son-in-law and was now King of Northumbria. He was a Norseman, and he owed his throne to me, which meant, I thought ruefully, that I was to Sigtryggr what Æthelhelm was to Edward. I was his most powerful noble, the one man he must either placate or kill, but he was also my friend, though when I met him in the old Roman palace of Eoferwic he fell into a rage. ‘You promised to kill Æthelhelm?’ he snarled at me.

‘I took an oath.’

‘Why!’ It was not a question. ‘To protect Æthelstan?’

‘I took an oath to protect him. I took that oath years—’

‘And he wants you to go south again!’ Sigtryggr interrupted me. ‘To save Wessex from its own chaos! To save Wessex! That’s what you did last year! You saved that bastard Æthelstan. We needed him dead! But no, you had to save the miserable arsehole’s life! You won’t go, I forbid it.’

‘Æthelstan,’ I pointed out, ‘is your brother-in-law.’

Sigtryggr uttered one word to that, then kicked a table. A Roman jug of blue glass fell and shattered, causing one of his wolfhounds to whine. He pointed a finger at me. ‘You must not go. I forbid it!’

‘Do you break your oaths, lord King?’ I asked.

He snarled again, paced angrily on the tiled floor, then turned on me again. ‘When Edward dies,’ he said, ‘the Saxons will start fighting amongst themselves. True?’

‘Probably true,’ I said.

‘Then let them fight!’ Sigtryggr said. ‘Pray that the bastards kill each other! It’s none of our business. While they’re fighting each other they can’t fight us!’

‘And if Ælfweard wins,’ I pointed out, ‘he will attack us anyway.’

‘You think Æthelstan won’t? You think he won’t lead an army across our frontier?’

‘He promised not to. Not while I live.’

‘And that can’t be long,’ Sigtryggr said, making it sound like a threat.

‘And you’re married to his twin sister,’ I retorted.

‘You think that will stop him?’ Sigtryggr glared at me. He had first been married to my daughter, who had died defending Eoferwic, and after her death King Edward had forced the marriage between Sigtryggr and Eadgyth, threatening invasion if Sigtryggr refused, and Sigtryggr, assailed by other enemies, accepted. Edward claimed the marriage was a symbol of peace between the Saxon kingdoms and Norse-ruled Northumbria, but only a fool did not recognise that the real reason for the marriage was to place a Saxon Christian queen in what was enemy country. If Sigtryggr died then his son, my grandson, would be too young to rule, and the Danes and Norse would never accept the pious Eadgyth as their ruler, and in her stead they would place one of their own on Northumbria’s throne and thus give the Saxon kingdoms a reason to invade. They would claim they came to restore Eadgyth to her proper place, and so Northumbria, my country, would be swallowed by Wessex.

And all that was true. Yet still I would travel south.

I took an oath, not just to Æthelstan, but to Æthelflaed who had been King Alfred’s daughter and once my lover. I swore to protect Æthelstan and I swore to kill his enemies when Edward died. And if a man breaks an oath he has no honour. We might have much in this life. We might be born to wealth, to land, to success, and I had been given all those things, but when we die we go to the afterlife with nothing except reputation, and a man without honour has no reputation. I would keep my oath.

‘How many men are you taking?’ Sigtryggr asked me.

‘Just forty.’

‘Just forty!’ he echoed scornfully. ‘And what if Constantin of Scotland invades?’

‘He won’t. He’s too busy fighting Owain of Strath Clota.’

‘And the Norse in the west?’ he demanded.

‘We defeated them last year.’

‘And they have new leaders, there are more ships arriving!’

‘Then we’ll defeat them next year,’ I said.

He sat again, and two of his wolfhounds came to be petted. ‘My younger brother came from Ireland,’ he said.

‘Brother?’ I asked. I had known Sigtryggr had a brother, but he had rarely been mentioned and I had thought he had stayed in Ireland.

‘Guthfrith,’ he said the name sourly. ‘He expects me to clothe and feed him.’

I looked around the big chamber where men watched us. ‘He’s here?’

‘Probably in a whorehouse. You’re going south then?’ he asked grumpily. He looked old, I thought, yet he was younger than me. His once handsome face with its missing eye was creased, his hair was grey and lank, his beard thin. I had not seen his new queen in the palace, reports said that she spent much of her time in a convent she had established in the city. She had given Sigtryggr no child.

‘We’re going south,’ I confirmed.

‘Where the worst of the trouble comes from. But don’t travel through Lindcolne,’ he sounded unhappy.

‘No?’

‘There’s a report of the plague there.’

Finan, standing beside me, crossed himself. ‘I’ll avoid Lindcolne,’ I said, raising my voice slightly. There were a dozen servants and household warriors within earshot and I wanted them to hear what I said. ‘We’ll take the western road through Mameceaster.’

‘Then come back soon,’ Sigtryggr said, ‘and come back alive.’

He meant that, he just didn’t sound as if he meant it. We left next day.

I had no intention of going south by any road, but I had wanted any listeners in Sigtryggr’s court to repeat my words. Æthelhelm had his spies in Sigtryggr’s court, and I wanted him watching the Roman roads that led south from Northumbria to Wessex.

I had ridden to Eoferwic, knowing it was my duty to speak with Sigtryggr, but while we rode, Berg had taken Spearhafoc down the coast to a small harbour on the Humbre’s northern bank where he would be waiting for us.

Early on the morning after my meeting with Sigtryggr, and feeling sour with the ale and wine of the night before, I led my five men out of the city. We rode south, but once out of sight of Eoferwic’s ramparts we turned eastwards and that evening we found Spearhafoc, manned by a crew of forty, riding at anchor on a falling tide. Next morning I sent six men to take our horses back to Bebbanburg while the rest of us took Spearhafoc to sea.

Æthelhelm would hear that we had been in Eoferwic and would be told that we had left the city by the southern gate. He would probably assume I was heading for Mercia to join Æthelstan, but he would be puzzled that I travelled with only five companions. I wanted him to be nervous and to be watching all the wrong places.

In the meantime I had told no one, not Eadith, not my son, not even Finan, what we were doing. Eadith and Finan had expected me to travel south on the news of Edward’s death, but, though the king still lived, I had left in a hurry. ‘What did that priest tell you?’ Finan asked as Spearhafoc coasted south under the summer wind.

‘He told me that I needed to go south.’

‘And what,’ Finan asked, ‘are we doing when we get there?’

‘I wish I knew.’

He laughed at that. ‘Forty of us,’ he said, nodding at Spearhafoc’s crowded belly, ‘invading Wessex?’

‘More than forty,’ I said, then fell silent. I stared at the sun-glossed sea as it slid past Spearhafoc’s sleek hull. We could not have wished for a better day. We had a wind to drive us and a sea to carry us, and that sea was rippled by dazzling light, broken only by small frills of foam curling at the wave crests. That weather should have been a good omen, but I was assailed by unease. I had launched this voyage impulsively, seizing what I thought was an opportunity, but now the doubts were nagging me. I touched Thor’s hammer hanging at my neck. ‘The priest,’ I said to Finan, ‘brought me a message from Eadgifu.’

For a moment he looked puzzled, then recognised the name. ‘Lavender tits!’

I half smiled, remembering that I had once told Finan that Eadgifu’s breasts smelled of lavender. Eadith had told me that many women infused lavender into lanolin and smeared it on their cleavage. ‘Eadgifu has tits that smell like lavender,’ I confirmed to Finan, ‘and she asks for our help.’

Finan stared at me. ‘Christ on his cross!’ he finally said. ‘What in God’s name are we doing?’

‘Going to find Eadgifu, of course,’ I said.

He still stared at me. ‘Why us?’

‘Who else can she ask?’

‘Anyone!’

I shook my head. ‘She’ll have a few friends in Wessex, none in Mercia or East Anglia. She’s desperate.’

But why ask for your help?’

‘Because she knows I’m the enemy of her enemy.’

‘Æthelhelm.’

‘Who hates her,’ I said.

That hatred was easy to understand. Edward had met Eadgifu while he was still married to Æfflaed, Æthelhelm’s sister and Ælfweard’s mother. The new, younger and prettier woman had won that rivalry, usurping Æfflaed’s place in the king’s bed and even persuading Edward to name her as Queen of Mercia. To make Æthelhelm’s hatred even more intense she had given Edward two more sons, Edmund and Eadred. Both boys were infants, yet the eldest, Edmund, had a claim on the throne if, so some believed, Æthelstan was illegitimate, and, as many realised, Ælfweard was simply too stupid, cruel and unreliable to be the next king. Æthelhelm understood that danger to his nephew’s future, which was why Eadgifu, in her desperation, had sent the priest to Bebbanburg.

‘She knows what Æthelhelm is planning for her,’ I told Finan.

‘She knows?’

‘She has spies, just as he does, and she was told that as soon as Edward dies Æthelhelm plans to carry her off to Wiltunscir. She’s to be placed in a nunnery and her two boys are to be raised in Æthelhelm’s household.’

Finan gazed across the summer sea. ‘Meaning,’ he said slowly, ‘that both boys will have their throats slit.’

‘Or else die of a convenient illness, yes.’

‘So what are we going to do? Rescue her?’

‘Rescue her,’ I agreed.

‘But, Christ! She’s protected by the king’s household troops! And Æthelhelm will be watching her like a hawk.’

‘She’s already rescued herself,’ I said. ‘She and her children went to Cent. She told her husband she was going to pray for him at the shrine of Saint Bertha, but in truth she wants to raise troops who’ll protect her and the boys.’

‘Dear God,’ Finan looked appalled. ‘And men will follow her?’

‘Why not? Remember that her father was Sigehelm.’ Sigehelm had been the ealdorman of Cent until he was killed fighting the Danes in East Anglia. He had been wealthy, though nothing like as rich as Æthelhelm, and Sigehelm’s son, Sigulf, had inherited that wealth along with his father’s household warriors. ‘Sigulf probably has three hundred men,’ I said.

‘And Æthelhelm has double that, at least! And he’ll have the king’s warriors too!’

‘And those warriors will be watching Æthelstan in Mercia,’ I said. ‘Besides, if Eadgifu and her brother march against Æthelhelm then others will follow them.’ That, I thought, was a slender hope, but not an impossible one.

Finan frowned at me. ‘I thought your oath was to Æthelstan. Now it’s to Lavender Tits?’

‘My oath is to Æthelstan,’ I said.

‘But Eadgifu will expect you to make her son the next king!’

‘Edmund is too young,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s an infant. The Witan will never appoint him king, not till he’s of age.’

‘By which time,’ Finan pointed out, ‘Æthelstan will be on the throne with sons of his own!’

‘I’ll be dead by then,’ I said, and touched the hammer again.

Finan gave a mirthless laugh. ‘So we’re sailing to join a Centish rebellion?’

‘To lead it. It’s my best chance to kill Æthelhelm.’

‘Why not join Æthelstan in Mercia?’

‘Because if the West Saxons hear that Æthelstan is using Northumbrian troops they’ll regard that as a declaration of war by Sigtryggr.’

‘That won’t matter if Æthelstan wins!’

‘But he has fewer men than Æthelhelm, he has less money than Æthelhelm. The best way to help him win is to kill Æthelhelm.’ Far to the east a speck of sail showed. I had been watching it for some time, but saw now that the distant ship was travelling northwards and would come nowhere near us.

‘Damn your oaths,’ Finan said mildly.

‘I agree. But remember, Æthelhelm has tried to kill me. So oath or no oath I owe him a death.’

Finan nodded because that explanation made sense to him even if he did believe we were on a voyage to madness. ‘And his nephew? What of him?’

‘We’ll kill Ælfweard too.’

‘You swore an oath to kill him too?’ Finan asked.

‘No,’ I admitted, but then touched my hammer once more. ‘But I swear one now. I’ll kill that little earsling along with his uncle.’

Finan grinned. ‘One ship’s crew, eh? Forty of us! Forty men to kill the King of Wessex and his most powerful ealdorman?’

‘Forty men,’ I said, ‘and the troops of Cent.’

Finan laughed. ‘I sometimes think you’re moon-crazed, lord,’ he said, ‘but, God knows, you’ve not lost yet.’

We spent the next two nights sheltering in East Anglian rivers. We saw no one, just a landscape of reeds. On the second night the wind freshened in the darkness and the sky, that had been clear all day, clouded over to hide the stars, while far off to the west I saw lightning flicker and heard Thor’s growl in the night. Spearhafoc, even though she was tied securely in a safe haven, shivered under the wind’s assault. Rain spattered on the deck, the wind gusted, and the rain fell harder. Few of us slept.

The dawn brought low clouds, drenching rain, and a hard wind, but I judged it safe enough to turn the ship and let the wind carry us downriver. We half-hoisted the sail, and Spearhafoc leaped ahead like a wolfhound loosed from the leash. The rain drove from astern, heavy and slanting in the wind’s grip. The steering-oar bent and groaned and I called on Gerbruht, the big Frisian, to help me. Spearhafoc was defying the flooding tide, racing past mudbanks and reeds, then at last we were clear of the shoals at the river’s mouth and could turn southwards. The ship bent alarmingly to the wind and I released the larboard sheet and still she drove on, shattering water at the bows. This, I thought, was madness. Impatience had driven me to sea when any sensible seaman would have stayed in shelter. ‘Where are we going, lord?’ Gerbruht shouted.

‘Across the estuary of the Temes!’

The wind rose. Thunder hammered to the west. This coast was shallow, shortening the waves that shattered against our hull and drenched the rain-sodden crew with spray. Men clung to the benches as they bailed water. They were praying. I was praying. They were praying to survive, while I was asking the gods to forgive my stupidity in thinking a ship could survive this wind’s anger. It was dark, the sun utterly hidden by the roiling clouds, and we saw no other ships. Sailors were letting the storm blow over, but we hammered on southwards across the wide mouth of the Temes.

The estuary’s southern shore appeared as a sullen stretch of sand pounded by foam beyond which were dark woods on low hills. The thunder came closer. The sky above distant Lundene was black as night, sometimes split by a jagged stab of lightning. The rain teemed down, and I searched the shore for a landmark, any landmark that I might recognise. The steering-oar, taking all my and Gerbruht’s strength, quivered like a live thing.

‘There!’ I shouted at Gerbruht, pointing. I had seen the island ahead, an island of reeds and mud, and to its left was the wide, wind-whipped entrance to the Swalwan Creek. Spearhafoc pounded on, clawing her way towards the creek’s safety. ‘I had a ship called Middelniht once!’ I bellowed to Gerbruht.

‘Lord?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘She’d been stranded on that island,’ I shouted, ‘on Sceapig! And the Middelniht proved to be a good ship! A Frisian ship! It’s a good omen!’

He grinned. Water was dripping from his beard. ‘I hope so, lord!’ He did not sound confident.

‘It’s a good omen, Gerbruht! Trust me, we’ll be in calmer water soon!’

We plunged on, the ship’s hull shaking with every wave that pounded her, but at last we cleared the island’s western tip where marker withies were being bent flat by the gale, and once in the creek the seas calmed to a vicious chop and we dropped the sodden sail and our oars took us into the wide channel that ran between the Isle of Sceapig and the Centish mainland. I could see farmsteads on Sceapig, the smoke from their roof-holes being whipped eastwards on the wind. The channel narrowed. The wind and rain still beat down on us, but the water was sheltered here and the creek’s banks had tamed the ship-killing waves. We went slowly, the oars rising and falling, and I thought how the dragon-boats must have crept down this waterway bringing savage men to plunder the rich fields and towns of Cent, and how the villagers must have been terrified as the serpent-headed war boats appeared from the river mists. I have never forgotten Father Beocca, my childhood tutor, clasping his hands and praying nightly: ‘From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us.’ Now I, a northerner, was bringing swords, spears and shields to Cent.

The priest who had brought me Eadgifu’s message said that though she had announced her pious intention of praying at Saint Bertha’s tomb in Contwaraburg, in truth she had taken refuge in a small town called Fæfresham where she had endowed a convent. ‘The queen will be safe there,’ the priest had told me.

‘Safe! Protected by nuns?’

‘And by God, lord,’ he had reproved me, ‘the queen is protected by God.’

‘But why didn’t she go to Contwaraburg?’ I had asked him. Contwaraburg was a considerable town, had a stout wall, and, I assumed, men to defend it.

‘Contwaraburg is inland, lord.’ The priest had meant that if Eadgifu was threatened by failure, if Æthelhelm discovered her and sent troops, then she wanted to be in a place where she could escape by sea. From where she could cross to Frankia, and Fæfresham was very close to a harbour on the Swalwan Creek. It was, I supposed, a prudent choice.

We rowed west and I saw the masts of a half-dozen ships showing above the sodden thatch of a small village on the creek’s southern bank. The village, I knew, was called Ora and lay a short distance north of Fæfresham. I had sailed this coast with its wide marshes, tide-swamped mudbanks, and hidden creeks often enough, I had fought Danes on its shores and had buried good men in its inland pastures.

‘Into the harbour,’ I told Gerbruht and we turned Spearhafoc, and my weary crew rowed her into Ora’s shallow harbour. It was a bedraggled, poor excuse for a harbour with rotting wharves either side of a tidal creek. On the western bank, where the wharves showed signs of being in repair, there were four tubby merchant ships, big bellied and squat, whose normal duties were to carry food and fodder upriver to Lundene. The water, though sheltered from the gale, was choppy and white-flecked, slapping irritably against the pilings and against three more ships that were moored at the harbour’s southern end. Those ships were long, high-prowed, and sleek. Each had a cross mounted on the bows. Finan saw them and climbed onto the steering platform beside me. ‘Whose are those?’ he asked.

‘You tell me,’ I said, wondering whether they were ships that Eadgifu was keeping in case she had to flee for her life.

‘They’re fighting ships,’ Finan said dourly, ‘but whose?’

‘Saxon, for sure,’ I said. The crosses on the bows told me that.

There were buildings on both banks of the harbour. Most of them were shacks, presumably storing fishermen’s gear or cargo that awaited shipment, but some of the buildings were larger and had smoke streaming eastwards from their roof-holes. One of those, the biggest, stood at the centre of the western wharves and had a barrel hanging as a sign above a wide thatched porch. It was a tavern, I assumed, and then the door beneath the porch opened and two men appeared and stood watching us. I knew then who had brought the three fighting ships into the harbour.

Finan knew too and swore under his breath.

Because the two men wore dull red cloaks, and only one man insisted that his warriors wore matching red cloaks. Æthelhelm the Elder had started the fashion, and his son, my enemy, had continued the tradition.

So Æthelhelm’s men had reached this part of Cent before us. ‘What do we do?’ Gerbruht asked.

‘What do you think we do?’ Finan snarled. ‘We kill the buggers.’

Because when queens call for help, warriors go to war.