Читать книгу The Last Kingdom Series Books 1-6 - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 26

Alfred’s army withdrew from Werham. Some West Saxons stayed to watch Guthrum, but very few, for armies are expensive to maintain and, once gathered, they always seem to fall sick, so Alfred took advantage of the truce to send the men of the fyrds back to their farms while he and his household troops went to Scireburnan that lay a half-day’s march north-west of Werham and, happily for Alfred, was home to a bishop and a monastery. Beocca told me that Alfred spent that winter reading the ancient law codes from Kent, Mercia and Wessex, and doubtless he was readying himself to compile his own laws, which he eventually did. I am certain he was happy that winter, criticising his ancestors’ rules and dreaming of the perfect society where the church told us what not to do and the king punished us for doing it.

Huppa, Ealdorman of Thornsæta, commanded the few men who were left facing Werham’s ramparts, while Odda the Younger led a troop of horsemen who patrolled the shores of the Poole, but the two bands made only a small force and they could do little except keep an eye on the Danes, and why should they do more? There was a truce, Guthrum had sworn on the holy ring, and Wessex was at peace.

The Yule feast was a thin affair in Werham, though the Danes did their best and at least there was plenty of ale so men got drunk, but my chief memory of that Yule is of Guthrum crying. The tears poured down his face as a harpist played a sad tune and a skald recited a poem about Guthrum’s mother. Her beauty, the skald said, was rivalled only by the stars, while her kindness was such that flowers sprang up in winter to pay her homage. ‘She was a rancid bitch,’ Ragnar whispered to me, ‘and ugly as a bucket of shit.’

‘You knew her?’

‘Ravn knew her. He always said she had a voice that could cut down a tree.’

Guthrum was living up to his name ‘the Unlucky’. He had come so close to destroying Wessex and it had only been Halfdan’s death that had cheated him of the prize, and that was not Guthrum’s fault, yet there was a simmering resentment among the trapped army. Men muttered that nothing could ever prosper under Guthrum’s leadership, and perhaps that distrust had made him gloomier than ever, or perhaps it was hunger.

For the Danes were hungry. Alfred kept his word and sent food, but there was never quite enough, and I did not understand why the Danes did not eat their horses that were left to graze on the winter marshes between the fortress and the Poole. Those horses grew desperately thin, their pathetic grazing supplemented by what little hay the Danes had discovered in the town and when that was gone they pulled the thatch from some of Werham’s houses, and that poor diet kept the horses alive until the first glimmerings of spring. I welcomed those new signs of the turning year; the song of a missel thrush, the dog violets showing in sheltered spots, the lambs’ tails on the hazel trees and the first frogs croaking in the marsh. Spring was coming, and when the land was green Guthrum would leave and we hostages would be freed.

We received little news other than what the Danes told us, but sometimes a message was delivered to one or other of the hostages, usually nailed to a willow tree outside the gate, and one such message was addressed to me and, for the first time, I was grateful that Beocca had taught me to read for Father Willibald had written and told me I had a son. Mildrith had given birth before Yule and the boy was healthy and she was also healthy and the boy was called Uhtred. I wept when I read that. I had not expected to feel so much, but I did, and Ragnar asked why I was crying and I told him and he produced a barrel of ale and we gave ourselves a feast, or as much of a feast as we could make, and he gave me a tiny silver arm ring as a gift for the boy. I had a son. Uhtred.

Next day I helped Ragnar relaunch Wind-Viper. She had been dragged ashore so her timbers could be caulked, and we stowed her bilges with the stones that served as ballast and rigged her mast and afterwards killed a hare that we had trapped in the fields where the horses tried to graze, and Ragnar poured the hare’s blood on the Wind-Viper’s stem and called on Thor to send her fair winds and for Odin to send her great victories. We ate the hare that night and drank the last of the ale, and next morning a dragon boat arrived, coming from the sea, and I was amazed that Alfred had not ordered our fleet to patrol the waters off the Poole’s mouth, but none of our boats was there, and so that single Danish ship came upriver and brought a message for Guthrum.

Ragnar was vague about the ship. It came from East Anglia, he said, which turned out to be untrue, and merely brought news of that kingdom, which was equally untrue. It had come from the west, around Cornwalum, from the lands of the Welsh, but I only learned that later and, at the time, I did not care, because Ragnar also told me that we should be leaving soon, very soon, and I only had thoughts for the son I had not seen. Uhtred Uhtredson.

That night Guthrum gave the hostages a feast, a good feast too, with food and ale that had been brought on the newly arrived dragon ship, and Guthrum praised us for being good guests and he gave each of us an arm ring, and promised we would all be free soon. ‘When?’ I asked.

‘Soon!’ His long face glistened in the firelight as he raised a horn of ale to me. ‘Soon! Now drink!’

We all drank, and after the feast we hostages went to the nunnery’s hall where Guthrum insisted we slept. In the daytime we were free to roam wherever we wanted inside the Danish lines, and free to carry weapons if we chose, but at night he wanted all the hostages in one place so that his black-cloaked guards could keep an eye on us, and it was those guards who came for us in the night’s dark heart. They carried flaming torches and they kicked us awake, ordering us outside, and one of them kicked Serpent-Breath away when I reached for her. ‘Get outside,’ he snarled, and when I reached for the sword again a spear stave cracked across my skull and two more spears jabbed my arse, and I had no choice but to stumble out of the door into a gusting wind that was bringing a cold, spitting rain, and the wind tore at the flaming torches which lit the street where at least a hundred Danes waited, all armed, and I could see they had saddled and bridled their thin horses and my first thought was that these were the men who would escort us back to the West Saxon lines.

Then Guthrum, cloaked in black, pushed through the helmeted men. No words were spoken. Guthrum, grim-faced, the white bone in his hair, just nodded, and his black-cloaked men drew their swords and poor Wælla, Alfred’s cousin, was the first hostage to die. Guthrum winced slightly at the priest’s death, for I think he had liked Wælla, but by then I was turning, ready to fight the men behind me even though I had no weapon and knew that fight could only end with my death. A sword was already coming for me, held by a Dane in a leather jerkin that was studded with metal rivets, and he was grinning as he ran the blade towards my unprotected belly and he was still grinning as the throwing axe buried its blade between his eyes. I remember the thump of that blade striking home, the spurt of blood in the flamelight, the noise as the man fell onto the flint and shingle street, and all the while the frantic protests from the other hostages as they were murdered, but I lived. Ragnar had hurled the axe and now stood beside me, sword drawn. He was in his war gear, in polished chain mail, in high boots and a helmet which he had decorated with a pair of eagle wings, and in the raw light of the wind-fretted fires he looked like a god come down to Midgard.

‘They must all die,’ Guthrum insisted. The other hostages were dead or dying, their hands bloodied from their hopeless attempts to ward off the blades, and a dozen war Danes, swords red, now edged towards me to finish the job.

‘Kill this one,’ Ragnar shouted, ‘and you must kill me first.’ His men came out of the crowd to stand beside their lord. They were outnumbered by at least five to one, but they were Danes and they showed no fear.

Guthrum stared at Ragnar. Hacca was still not dead and he twitched in his agony and Guthrum, irritated that the man lived, drew his sword and rammed it into Hacca’s throat. Guthrum’s men were stripping the arm rings from the dead, rings that had been gifts from their master just hours before. ‘They all must die,’ Guthrum said when Hacca was still. ‘Alfred will kill our hostages now, so it must be man for man.’

‘Uhtred is my brother,’ Ragnar said, ‘and you are welcome to kill him, lord, but you must first kill me.’

Guthrum stepped back. ‘This is no time for Dane to fight Dane,’ he said grudgingly, and sheathed his sword to show that I could live. I stepped across the street to find the man who had stolen Serpent-Breath, Wasp-Sting and my armour, and he gave them to me without protest.

Guthrum’s men were mounting their horses. ‘What’s happening?’ I asked Ragnar.

‘What do you think?’ he asked truculently.

‘I think you’re breaking the truce.’

‘We did not come this far,’ he said, ‘to march away like beaten dogs.’ He watched as I buckled Serpent-Breath’s belt. ‘Come with us,’ he said.

‘Come with you where?’

‘To take Wessex, of course.’

I do not deny that there was a tug on my heart strings, a temptation to join the wild Danes in their romp across Wessex, but the tug was easily resisted. ‘I have a wife,’ I told him, ‘a child.’

He grimaced. ‘Alfred has trapped you, Uhtred.’

‘No,’ I said, ‘the spinners did that.’ Urðr, Verðandi and Skuld, the three women who spin our threads at the foot of Yggdrasil, had decided my fate. Destiny is all. ‘I shall go to my woman,’ I said.

‘But not yet,’ Ragnar said with a half-smile, and he took me to the river where a small boat carried us to where the newly launched Wind-Viper was anchored. A half-crew was already aboard, as was Brida, who gave me a breakfast of bread and ale. At first light, when there was just enough grey in the sky to reveal the glistening mud of the river’s banks, Ragnar ordered the anchor raised and we drifted downstream on current and tide, gliding past the dark shapes of other Danish ships until we came to a reach wide enough to turn Wind-Viper and there the oars were fitted, men tugged and she swivelled gracefully, both oar banks began to pull and she shot out into the Poole where most of the Danish fleet rode at anchor. We did not go far, just to the barren shore of a big island that sits in the centre of the Poole, a place of squirrels, seabirds and foxes. Ragnar let the ship glide towards the shore and, when her prow touched the beach, he embraced me. ‘You are free,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ I said fervently, remembering those bloodied corpses by Werham’s nunnery.

He held onto my shoulders. ‘You and I,’ he said, ‘are tied as brothers. Don’t forget that. Now go.’

I splashed through the shallows as the Wind-Viper, a ghostly grey in the dawn, backed away. Brida called a farewell, I heard the oars bite and the ship was gone.

That island was a forbidding place. Fishermen and fowlers had lived there once, and an anchorite, a monk who lives by himself, had occupied a hollow tree in the island’s centre, but the coming of the Danes had driven them all away and the remnants of the fishermen’s houses were nothing but charred timbers on blackened ground. I had the island to myself, and it was from its shore that I watched the vast Danish fleet row towards the Poole’s entrance, though they stopped there rather than go to sea because the wind, already brisk, had freshened even more and now it was a half-gale blowing from the south and the breakers were shattering wild and white above the spit of sand that protected their new anchorage. The Danish fleet had moved there, I surmised, because to stay in the river would have exposed their crews to the West Saxon bowmen who would be among the troops reoccupying Werham.

Guthrum had led his horsemen out of Werham, that much was obvious, and all the Danes who had remained in the town were now crammed onto the ships where they waited for the weather to calm so they could sail away, but to where, I had no idea.

All day that south wind blew, getting harder and bringing a slashing rain, and I became bored of watching the Danish fleet fret at its anchors and so I explored the island’s shore and found the remnants of a small boat half hidden in a thicket and I hauled the wreck down to the water and discovered it floated well enough, and the wind would take me away from the Danes and so I waited for the tide to turn and then, half swamped in the broken craft, I floated free. I used a piece of wood as a crude paddle, but the wind was howling now and it drove me wet and cold across that wide water until, as night fell, I came to the Poole’s northern shore and there I became one of the sceadugengan again, picking my way through reeds and marshes until I found higher ground where bushes gave me shelter for a broken sleep. In the morning I walked eastwards, still buffeted by wind and rain, and so came to Hamtun that evening.

Where I found that Mildrith and my son were gone.

Taken by Odda the Younger.

Father Willibald told me the tale. Odda had come that morning, while Leofric was down at the shore securing the boats against the bruising wind, and Odda had said that the Danes had broken out, that they would have killed their hostages, that they might come to Hamtun at any moment, and that Mildrith should flee. ‘She did not want to go, lord,’ Willibald said, and I could hear the timidity in his voice. My anger was frightening him. ‘They had horses, lord,’ he said, as if that explained it.

‘You didn’t send for Leofric?’

‘They wouldn’t let me, lord.’ He paused. ‘But we were scared, lord. The Danes had broken the truce and we thought you were dead.’

Leofric had set off in pursuit, but by the time he learned Mildrith was gone Odda had at least a half-morning’s start and Leofric did not even know where he would have gone. ‘West,’ I said, ‘back to Defnascir.’

‘And the Danes?’ Leofric asked, ‘where are they going?’

‘Back to Mercia?’ I guessed.

Leofric shrugged. ‘Across Wessex? With Alfred waiting? And you say they went on horseback? How fit were the horses?’

‘They weren’t fit. They were half starved.’

‘Then they haven’t gone to Mercia,’ he said firmly.

‘Perhaps they’ve gone to meet Ubba,’ Willibald suggested.

‘Ubba!’ I had not heard that name in a long time.

‘There were stories, lord,’ Willibald said nervously, ‘that he was among the Britons in Wales. That he had a fleet on the Sæfern.’

That made sense. Ubba was replacing his dead brother, Halfdan, and evidently leading another force of Danes against Wessex, but where? If he crossed the Sæfern’s wide sea then he would be in Defnascir, or perhaps he was marching around the river, heading into Alfred’s heartland from the north, but for the moment I did not care. I only wanted to find my wife and child. There was pride in that desire, of course, but more than pride. Mildrith and I were suited to each other, I had missed her, I wanted to see my child. That ceremony in the rain-dripping cathedral had worked its magic and I wanted her back and I wanted to punish Odda the Younger for taking her away. ‘Defnascir,’ I said again, ‘that’s where the bastard’s gone. And that’s where we go tomorrow.’ Odda, I was certain, would head for the safety of home. Not that he feared my revenge, for he surely assumed I was dead, but he would be worried about the Danes, and I was worried that they might have found him on his westward flight.

‘You and me?’ Leofric asked.

I shook my head. ‘We take Heahengel and a full fighting crew.’

Leofric looked sceptical. ‘In this weather?’

‘The wind’s dropping,’ I said, and it was, though it still tugged at the thatch and rattled the shutters, but it was calmer next morning, but not by much for Hamtun’s water was still flecked white as the small waves ran angrily ashore, suggesting that the seas beyond the Solente would be huge and furious. But there were breaks in the cloud, the wind had gone into the east, and I was in no mood to wait. Two of the crew, both seamen all their lives, tried to dissuade me from the voyage. They had seen this weather before, they said, and the storm would come back, but I refused to believe them and they, to their credit, came willingly as did Father Willibald, which was brave of him for he hated the sea and was facing rougher water than any he had seen before.

We rowed up Hamtun’s water, hoisted the sail in the Solente, brought the oars inboard and ran before that east wind as though the serpent Corpse-Ripper was at our stern. Heahengel hammered through the short seas, threw the white water high, raced, and that was while we were still in sheltered waters. Then we passed the white stacks at Wiht’s end, the rocks that are called the Nædles, and the first tumultuous seas hit us and the Heahengel bent to them. Yet still we flew, and the wind was dropping and the sun shone through rents in the dark clouds to glitter on the churning sea, and Leofric suddenly roared a warning and pointed ahead.

He was pointing to the Danish fleet. Like me they believed the weather was improving, and they must have been in a hurry to join Guthrum, for the whole fleet was coming out of the Poole and was now sailing south to round the rocky headland, which meant, like us, they were going west. Which could mean they were going to Defnascir or perhaps planning to sail clear about Cornwalum to join Ubba in Wales.

‘You want to tangle with them?’ Leofric asked me grimly.

I heaved on the steering oar, driving us south. ‘We’ll go outside them,’ I said, meaning we would head out to sea and I doubted any of their ships would bother with us. They were in a hurry to get wherever they were going and with luck, I thought, Heahengel would outrun them for she was a fast ship and they were still well short of the headland.

We flew downwind and there was joy in it, the joy of steering a boat through angry seas, though I doubt there was much joy for the men who had to bail Heahengel, chucking the water over the side, and it was one of those men who looked astern and called a sudden warning to me. I turned to see a black squall seething across the broken seas. It was an angry patch of darkness and rain, coming fast, so fast that Willibald, who had been clutching the ship’s side as he vomited overboard, fell to his knees, made the sign of the cross and began to pray. ‘Get the sail down!’ I shouted at Leofric, and he staggered forward, but too late, much too late, for the squall struck.

One moment the sun had shone, then we were abruptly thrust into the devil’s playground as the squall hit us like a shield wall. The ship shuddered, water and wind and gloom smashing us in sudden turmoil and Heahengel swung to the blow, going broadside to the sea and nothing I could do would hold her straight, and I saw Leofric stagger across the deck as the stærbord side went under water. ‘Bail!’ I shouted desperately, ‘bail!’ And then, with a noise like thunder, the great sail split into tatters that whipped off the yard, and the ship came slowly upright, but she was low in the water, and I was using all my strength to keep her coming round, creeping round, reversing our course so that I could put her bows into that turmoil of sea and wind, and the men were praying, making the sign of the cross, bailing water, and the remnants of the sail and the broken lines were mad things, ragged demons, and the sudden gale was howling like the furies in the rigging and I thought how futile it would be to die at sea so soon after Ragnar had saved my life.

Somehow we got six oars into the water and then, with two men to an oar, we pulled into that seething chaos. Twelve men pulled six oars, three men tried to cut the rigging’s wreckage away, and the others threw water over the side. No orders were given, for no voice could be heard above that shrieking wind that was flensing the skin from the sea and whipping it in white spindrift. Huge swells rolled, but they were no danger for the Heahengel rode them, but their broken tops threatened to swamp us, and then I saw the mast sway, its shrouds parting, and I shouted uselessly, for no one could hear me, and the great spruce spar broke and fell. It fell across the ship’s side and the water flowed in again, but Leofric and a dozen men somehow managed to heave the mast overboard and it banged down our flank, then jerked because it was still held to the ship by a tangle of seal-hide ropes. I saw Leofric pluck an axe from the swamped bilge and start to slash at that tangle of lines, but I screamed at him with all my breath to put the axe down.

Because the mast, tied to us and floating behind us, seemed to steady the ship. It held Heahengel into the waves and wind, and let the great seas go rolling beneath us, and we could catch our breath at last. Men looked at each other as if amazed to find themselves alive, and I could even let go of the steering oar because the mast, with the big yard and the remnants of its sail still attached, was holding us steady. I found my body aching. I was soaked through, must have been cold, but did not notice.

Leofric came to stand beside me. Heahengel’s prow was facing eastwards, but we were travelling westwards, driven backwards by the tide and wind, and I turned to make certain we had sea room, and then touched Leofric’s shoulder and pointed towards the shore.

Where we saw a fleet dying.

The Danes had been sailing south, following the shore from the Poole’s entrance to the rearing headland, and that meant they were on a lee shore, and in that sudden resurgence of the storm they stood no chance. Ship after ship was being driven ashore. A few had made it past the headland, and another handful were trying to row clear of the cliffs, but most were doomed. We could not see their deaths, but I could imagine them. The crash of hulls against rocks, the churning water breaking through the planks, the pounding of sea and wind and timber on drowning men, dragon prows splintering and the halls of the sea god filling with the souls of warriors and, though they were the enemy, I doubt any of us felt anything but pity. The sea gives a cold and lonely death.

Ragnar and Brida. I just gazed, but could not distinguish one ship from another through the rain and broken sea. We did watch one ship, which seemed to have escaped, suddenly sink. One moment she was on a wave, spray flying from her hull, oars pulling her free, and next she was just gone. She vanished. Other ships were banging each other, oars tangling and splintering. Some tried to turn and run back to the Poole and many of those were driven ashore, some on the sands and some on the cliffs. A few ships, pitifully few, beat their way clear, men hauling on the oars in a frenzy, but all the Danish ships were overloaded, carrying men whose horses had died, carrying an army we knew not where, and that army now died.

We were south of the headland now, being driven fast to the west, and a Danish ship, smaller than ours, came close and the steersman looked across and gave a grim smile as if to acknowledge there was only one enemy now, the sea. The Dane drifted ahead of us, not slowed, as we were, by trailing wreckage. The rain hissed down, a malevolent rain, stinging on the wind, and the sea was full of planks, broken spars, dragon prows, long oars, shields and corpses. I saw a dog swimming frantically, eyes white, and for a moment I thought it was Nihtgenga, then saw this dog had black ears while Nihtgenga had white. The clouds were the colour of iron, ragged and low, and the water was being shredded into streams of white and green-black, and the Heahengel reared to each sea, crashed down into the troughs and shook like a live thing with every blow, but she lived. She was well-built, she kept us alive, and all the while we watched the Danish ships die and Father Willibald prayed.

Oddly his sickness had passed. He looked pale, and doubtless felt wretched, but as the storm pummelled us his vomiting ended and he even came to stand beside me, steadying himself by holding onto the steering oar. ‘Who is the Danish god of the sea?’ he asked me over the wind’s noise.

‘Njorð!’ I shouted back.

He grinned. ‘You pray to him and I’ll pray to God.’

I laughed. ‘If Alfred knew you’d said that you’d never become a bishop!’

‘I won’t become a bishop unless we survive this! So pray!’

I did pray, and slowly, reluctantly, the storm eased. Low clouds raced over the angry water, but the wind died and we could cut away the wreckage of mast and yard and unship the oars and turn Heahengel to the west and row through the flotsam of a shattered war fleet. A score of Danish ships were in front of us, and there were others behind us, but I guessed that at least half their fleet had sunk, perhaps more, and I felt an immense fear for Ragnar and Brida. We caught up with the smaller Danish ships and I steered close to as many as I could and shouted across the broken seas. ‘Did you see Wind-Viper?’

‘No,’ they called back. No, came the answer, again and again. They knew we were an enemy ship, but did not care for there was no enemy out in that water except the water itself, and so we rowed on, a mastless ship, and left the Danes behind us and as night fell, and as a streak of sunlight leaked like seeping blood into a rift of the western clouds, I steered Heahengel into the crooked reach of the River Uisc, and once we were behind the headland the sea calmed and we rowed, suddenly safe, past the long spit of sand and turned into the river and I could look up into the darkening hills to where Oxton stood, and I saw no light there.

We beached Heahengel and staggered ashore and some men knelt and kissed the ground while others made the sign of the cross. There was a small harbour in the wide river reach and some houses by the harbour and we filled them, demanded that fires were lit and food brought, and then, in the darkness, I went back outside and saw the sparks of light flickering upriver. I realised they were torches being burned on the remaining Danish boats that had somehow found their way into the Uisc and now rowed inland, going north towards Exanceaster, and I knew that was where Guthrum must have ridden and that the Danes were there, and the fleet’s survivors would thicken his army and Odda the Younger, if he lived, might well have tried to go there too.

With Mildrith and my son. I touched Thor’s hammer and prayed they were alive.

And then, as the dark boats passed upstream, I slept.

In the morning we pulled Heahengel into the small harbour where she could rest on the mud when the tide fell. We were forty-eight men, tired but alive. The sky was ribbed with clouds, high and grey-pink, scudding before the storm’s dying wind.

We walked to Oxton through woods full of bluebells. Did I expect to find Mildrith there? I think I did, but of course she was not. There was only Oswald the steward and the slaves and none of them knew what was happening.

Leofric insisted on a day to dry clothes, sharpen weapons and fill bellies, but I was in no mood to rest so I took two men, Cenwulf and Ida, and walked north towards Exanceaster that lay on the far side of the Uisc. The river settlements were empty, for the folk had heard of the Danes coming and had fled into the hills, and so we walked the higher paths and asked them what had happened, but they knew nothing except that there were dragon ships in the river, and we could see those for ourselves. There was a storm-battered fleet drawn up on the riverbank beneath Exanceaster’s stone walls. There were more ships than I had suspected, suggesting that a good part of Guthrum’s fleet had survived by staying in the Poole when the storm struck, and a few of those ships were still arriving, their crews rowing up the narrow river. We counted hulls and reckoned there were close to ninety boats, which meant that almost half of Guthrum’s fleet had survived, and I tried to distinguish Wind-Viper’s hull among the others, but we were too far away.

Guthrum the Unlucky. How well he deserved that name, though in time he came close to earning a better, but for now he had been unfortunate indeed. He had broken out of Werham, had doubtless hoped to resupply his army in Exanceaster and then strike north, but the gods of sea and wind had struck him down and he was left with a crippled army. Yet it was still a strong army and, for the moment, safe behind Exanceaster’s Roman walls.

I wanted to cross the river, but there were too many Danes by their ships, so we walked further north and saw armed men on the road which led west from Exanceaster, a road which crossed the bridge beneath the city and led over the moors towards Cornwalum, and I stared a long time at those men, fearing they might be Danes, but they were staring east, suggesting that they watched the Danes and I guessed they were English and so we went down from the woods, shields slung on our backs to show we meant no harm.

There were eighteen men, led by a thegn named Withgil who had been the commander of Exanceaster’s garrison and who had lost most of his men when Guthrum attacked. He was reluctant to tell the story, but it was plain he had expected no trouble and had posted only a few guards on the eastern gate, and when they had seen the approaching horsemen the guards had thought they were English and so the Danes had been able to capture the gate and then pierce the town. Withgil claimed to have made a fight at the fort in the town’s centre, but it was obvious from his men’s embarrassment that it had been a pathetic resistance, if it amounted to any resistance at all, and the probable truth was that Withgil had simply run away.

‘Was Odda there?’ I asked.

‘Ealdorman Odda?’ Withgil asked. ‘Of course not.’

‘Where was he?’

Withgil frowned at me as if I had just come from the moon. ‘In the north, of course.’

‘The north of Defnascir?’

‘He marched a week ago. He led the fyrd.’

‘Against Ubba?’

‘That’s what the king ordered,’ Withgil said.

‘So where’s Ubba?’ I demanded.

It seemed that Ubba had brought his ships across the wide Sæfern sea and had landed far to the west in Defnascir. He had travelled before the storm struck, which suggested his army was intact, and Odda had been ordered north to block Ubba’s advance into the rest of Wessex, and if Odda had marched a week ago then surely Odda the Younger would know that and would have ridden to join his father? Which suggested that Mildrith was there, wherever there was. I asked Withgil if he had seen Odda the Younger, but he said he had neither seen nor heard of him since Christmas.

‘How many men does Ubba have?’ I asked.

‘Many,’ Withgil said, which was not helpful, but all he knew.

‘Lord,’ Cenwulf touched my arm and pointed east and I saw horsemen appearing on the low fields which stretched from the river towards the hill on which Exanceaster is built. A lot of horsemen, and behind them came a standard-bearer and, though we were too far away to see the badge on the flag, the green and white proclaimed that it was the West Saxon banner. So Alfred had come here? It seemed likely, but I was in no mind to cross the river and find out. I was only interested in searching for Mildrith.

War is fought in mystery. The truth can take days to travel, and ahead of truth flies rumour, and it is ever hard to know what is really happening, and the art of it is to pluck the clean bone of fact from the rotting flesh of fear and lies.

So what did I know? That Guthrum had broken the truce and had taken Exanceaster, and that Ubba was in the north of Defnascir. Which suggested that the Danes were trying to do what they had failed to do the previous year, split the West Saxon forces, and while Alfred faced one army the other would ravage the land or, perhaps, descend on Alfred’s rear, and to prevent that the fyrd of Defnascir had been ordered to block Ubba. Had that battle been fought? Was Odda alive? Was his son alive? Were Mildrith and my son alive? In any clash between Ubba and Odda I would have reckoned on Ubba. He was a great warrior, a man of legend among the Danes, and Odda was a fussy, worried, greying and ageing man.

‘We go north,’ I told Leofric when we were back at Oxton. I had no wish to see Alfred. He would be besieging Guthrum, and if I walked into his camp he would doubtless order me to join the troops ringing the city and I would sit there, wait, and worry. Better to go north and find Ubba.

So next morning, under a spring sun, the Heahengel’s crew marched north.

The war was between the Danes and Wessex. My war was with Odda the Younger, and I knew I was driven by pride. The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation and the Danes understood that. Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.

What do we look for in a lord? Strength, generosity, hardness and success, and why should a man not be proud of those things? Show me a humble warrior and I will see a corpse. Alfred preached humility, he even pretended to it, loving to appear in church with bare feet and prostrating himself before the altar, but he never possessed true humility. He was proud, and men feared him because of it, and men should fear a lord. They should fear his displeasure and fear that his generosity will cease. Reputation makes fear, and pride protects reputation, and I marched north because my pride was endangered. My woman and child had been taken from me, and I would take them back, and if they had been harmed then I would take my revenge and the stink of that man’s blood would make other men fear me. Wessex could fall for all I cared, my reputation was more important and so we marched, skirting Exanceaster, following a twisting cattle track into the hills until we reached Twyfyrde, a small place crammed with refugees from Exanceaster, and none of them had seen or heard news of Odda the Younger, nor had they heard of any battle to the north, though a priest claimed that lightning had struck thrice in the previous night which he swore was a sign that God had struck down the pagans.

From Twyfyrde we took paths that edged the great moor, walking through country that was deep-wooded, hilly and lovely. We would have made better time if we had possessed horses, but we had none, and the few we saw were old, sick and there were never enough for all our men and so we walked, sleeping that night in a deep combe bright with blossom and sifted with bluebells, and a nightingale sang us to sleep and the dawn chorus woke us and we walked on beneath the white mayflower, and that afternoon we came to the hills above the northern shore and we met folk who had fled the coastal lands, bringing with them their families and livestock, and their presence told us we must soon see the Danes.

I did not know it but the three spinners were making my fate. They were thickening the threads, twisting them tighter, making me into what I am, but staring down from that high hill I only felt a flicker of fear, for there was Ubba’s fleet, rowing east, keeping pace with the horsemen and infantry who marched along the shore.

The folk who had fled their homes told us that the Danes had come from the Welsh lands across the wide Sæfern sea, and that they had landed at a place called Beardastopol which lies far in Defnascir’s west, and there they had collected horses and supplies, but then their attack eastwards into the West Saxon heartland had been delayed by the great storm which had wrecked Guthrum’s fleet. Ubba’s ships had stayed in Beardastopol’s harbour until the storm passed and then, inexplicably, they had still waited even when the weather improved and I guessed that Ubba, who would do nothing without the consent of the gods, had cast the runesticks, found them unfavourable, and so waited until the auguries were better. Now the runes must have been good for Ubba’s army was on the move. I counted thirty-six ships which suggested an army of at least twelve or thirteen hundred men.

‘Where are they going?’ one of my men asked.

‘East,’ I grunted, what else could I say? East into Wessex. East into the rich heartland of England’s last kingdom. East to Wintanceaster or to any of the other plump towns where the churches, monasteries and nunneries were brimming with treasure, east to where the plunder waited, east to where there was food and more horses, east to invite more Danes to come south across Mercia’s frontier, and Alfred would be forced to turn around and face them, and then Guthrum’s army would come from Exanceaster and the army of Wessex would be caught between two hosts of Danes, except that the fyrd of Defnascir was somewhere on this coast and it was their duty to stop Ubba’s men.

We walked east, passing from Defnascir into Sumorsæte, and shadowing the Danes by staying on the higher ground, and that night I watched as Ubba’s ships came inshore and the fires were lit in the Danish camp, and we lit our own fires deep in a wood and were marching again before dawn and thus got ahead of our enemies and by midday we could see the first West Saxon forces. They were horsemen, presumably sent to scout the enemy, and they were now retreating from the Danish threat, and we walked until the hills dropped away to where a river flowed into the Sæfern sea, and it was there that we discovered that Ealdorman Odda had decided to make his stand, in a fort built by the old people on a hill near the river.

The river was called the Pedredan and close to its mouth was a small place called Cantucton, and near Cantucton was the ancient earth-walled fort that the locals said was named Cynuit. It was old, that fort, Father Willibald said it was older than the Romans, that it had been old when the world was young, and the fort had been made by throwing up earth walls on a hilltop and digging a ditch outside the walls. Time had worked on those walls, wearing them down and making the ditch shallower, and grass had overgrown the ramparts, and on one side the wall had been ploughed almost to nothing, ploughed until it was a mere shadow on the turf, but it was a fortress and the place where Ealdorman Odda had taken his forces and where he would die if he could not defeat Ubba, whose ships were already showing in the river’s mouth.

I did not go straight to the fort, but stopped in the shelter of some trees and dressed for war. I became Ealdorman Uhtred in his battle glory. The slaves at Oxton had polished my mail coat with sand and I pulled it on, and over it I buckled a leather sword belt for Serpent-Breath and Wasp-Sting. I pulled on tall boots, put on the shining helmet and picked up my iron-bossed shield and, when all the straps were tight and the buckles firm, I felt like a god dressed for war, dressed to kill. My men buckled their own straps, laced their boots, tested their weapons’ edges and even Father Willibald cut himself a stave, a great piece of ash that could break a man’s skull. ‘You won’t need to fight, father,’ I told him.

‘We all have to fight now, lord,’ he said. He took a step back and looked me up and down, and a small smile came to his face. ‘You’ve grown up,’ he said.

‘It’s what we do, father,’ I said.

‘I remember when I first saw you. A child. Now I fear you.’

‘Let’s hope the enemy does,’ I said, not quite sure what enemy I meant, whether Odda or Ubba, and I wished I had Bebbanburg’s standard, the snarling wolf’s head, but I had my swords and my shield and I led my men out of the wood and across the fields to where the fyrd of Defnascir would make its stand.

The Danes were a mile or so to our left, spilling from the coast road and hurrying to surround the hill called Cynuit, though they would be too late to bar our path. To my right were more Danes, ship-Danes, bringing their dragon-headed boats up the Pedredan.

‘They outnumber us,’ Willibald said.

‘They do,’ I agreed. There were swans on the river, corncrakes in the uncut hay and crimson orchids in the meadows. This was the time of year when men should be haymaking or shearing their sheep. I need not be here, I thought to myself. I need not go to this hilltop where the Danes will come to kill us. I looked at my men and wondered if they thought the same, but when they caught my eye they only grinned, or nodded, and I suddenly realised that they trusted me. I was leading them and they were not questioning me, though Leofric understood the danger. He caught up with me.

‘There’s only one way off that hilltop,’ he said softly.

‘I know.’

‘And if we can’t fight our way out,’ he said, ‘then we’ll stay there. Buried.’

‘I know,’ I said again, and I thought of the spinners and knew they were tightening the threads, and I looked up Cynuit’s slope and saw there were some women at the very top, women being sheltered by their men, and I thought Mildrith might be among them, and that was why I climbed the hill because I did not know where else to seek her.

But the spinners were sending me to that old earth fort for another reason. I had yet to stand in the big shield wall, in the line of warriors, in the heave and horror of a proper battle where to kill once is merely to invite another enemy to come. The hill of Cynuit was the road to full manhood and I climbed it because I had no choice, the spinners sent me.

Then a roar sounded to our right, down in the Pedredan’s valley, and I saw a banner being raised beside a beached ship. It was the banner of the raven. Ubba’s banner. Ubba, last and strongest and most frightening of the sons of Lothbrok, had brought his blades to Cynuit. ‘You see that boat?’ I said to Willibald, pointing to where the banner flew. ‘Ten years ago,’ I said, ‘I cleaned that ship. I scoured it, scrubbed it, cleaned it.’ Danes were taking their shields from the shield-strake and the sun glinted on their myriad spear blades. ‘I was ten years old,’ I told Willibald.

‘The same boat?’ he asked.

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ Perhaps it was a new ship. It did not matter, really, all that mattered was that it had brought Ubba.

To Cynuit.

The men of Defnascir had made a line where the old fort’s wall had eroded away. Some, a few, had spades and were trying to remake the earth barrier, but they would not be given time to finish, not if Ubba assaulted the hill, and I pushed through them, using my shield to thrust men out of my way, ignoring all those who questioned who we were, and so we made our way to the hill’s summit where Odda’s banner of a black stag flew.

I pulled off my helmet as I neared him. I tossed the helmet to Father Willibald, then drew Serpent-Breath for I had seen Odda the Younger standing beside his father, and he was staring at me as though I were a ghost, and to him I must have appeared just that. ‘Where is she?’ I shouted, and I pointed Serpent-Breath at him. ‘Where is she?’

Odda’s retainers drew swords or levelled spears, and Leofric drew his battle-thinned blade, Dane-Killer.

‘No!’ Father Willibald shouted and he ran forward, his staff raised in one hand and my helmet in the other. ‘No!’ He tried to head me off, but I pushed him aside, only to find three of Odda’s priests barring my way. That was one thing about Wessex, there were always priests. They appeared like mice out of a burning thatch, but I thrust the priests aside and confronted Odda the Younger. ‘Where is she?’ I demanded.

Odda the Younger was in mail. Mail so brightly polished that it hurt the eye. He had a helmet inlaid with silver, boots to which iron plates were strapped and a blue cloak held about his neck by a great brooch of gold and amber.

‘Where is she?’ I asked a fourth time, and this time Serpent-Breath was a hand’s length from his throat.

‘Your wife is at Cridianton,’ Ealdorman Odda answered. His son was too scared to open his mouth.

I had no idea where Cridianton was. ‘And my son?’ I stared into Odda the Younger’s frightened eyes. ‘Where is my son?’

‘They are both with my wife at Cridianton!’ Ealdorman Odda answered, ‘and they are safe.’

‘You swear to that?’ I asked.

‘Swear?’ The Ealdorman was angry now, his ugly, bulbous face red. ‘You dare ask me to swear?’ He drew his own sword. ‘We can cut you down like a dog,’ he said and his men’s swords twitched.

I swept my own sword around till it pointed down to the river. ‘You know whose banner that is?’ I asked, raising my voice so that a good portion of the men on Cynuit’s hill could hear me. ‘That is the raven banner of Ubba Lothbrokson. I have watched Ubba Lothbrokson kill. I have seen him trample men into the sea, cut their bellies open, take off their heads, wade in their blood and make his sword screech with their death-song, and you would kill me who is ready to fight him alongside you? Then do it.’ I spread my arms, baring my body to the Ealdorman’s sword. ‘Do it,’ I spat at him, ‘but first swear my wife and child are safe.’

He paused a long time, then lowered his blade. ‘They are safe,’ he said, ‘I swear it.’

‘And that thing,’ I pointed Serpent-Breath at his son, ‘did not touch her?’

The Ealdorman looked at his son who shook his head. ‘I swear I did not,’ Odda the Younger said, finding his voice. ‘I only wanted her to be safe. We thought you were dead and I wanted her to be safe. That is all, I swear it.’

I sheathed Serpent-Breath. ‘You owe my wife eighteen shillings,’ I said to the Ealdorman, then turned away.

I had come to Cynuit. I had no need to be on that hilltop. But I was there. Because destiny is everything.