Читать книгу Warriors of the Storm - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 10

The priests came to me early next morning. There were four of them, led by the Mercian twins Ceolnoth and Ceolberht who hated me. I had known them since boyhood and had no more love for them than they had for me, but at least I could now tell them apart. For years I had never known which twin I spoke to, they were as alike as two eggs, but one of our arguments had ended with me kicking out Ceolberht’s teeth, so now I knew that he was the one who hissed when he spoke. He dribbled too. ‘Will you be back by Easter, lord?’ he asked me. He was being very respectful, perhaps because he still had one or two teeth left and wanted to keep them.

‘No,’ I said, then urged my horse forward a pace. ‘Godwin! Put the fish in sacks!’

‘Yes, lord!’ Godwin called back. Godwin was my servant, and he and three other men had been rolling barrels from one of Ceaster’s storehouses. The barrels were filled with smoked fish, and the men were trying to make rope slings that would let each packhorse carry two barrels. Godwin frowned. ‘Do we have sacks, lord?’

‘There are twenty-two sacks of fleeces in my storeroom,’ I told him. ‘Tell my steward to empty them!’ I looked back to Father Ceolberht. ‘We won’t get all the wool out of the sacks,’ I told him, ‘and some of the wool will stick to the fish and then get caught in our teeth.’ I smiled at him. ‘If we have teeth.’

‘How many men will be left to defend Ceaster?’ his brother asked sternly.

‘Eighty,’ I said.

‘Eighty!’

‘And half of those are sick,’ I added. ‘So you’ll have forty fit men and the rest will be cripples.’

‘It isn’t enough!’ he protested.

‘Of course it isn’t enough,’ I snarled, ‘but I need an army to finish off Ragnall. Ceaster will have to take its chances.’

‘But if the heathens come …’ Father Wissian suggested nervously.

‘The heathens won’t know how big the garrison is,’ I said, ‘but they will know how strong the walls are. Leaving so few men here is a risk, but it’s a risk I’m taking. And you’ll have men from the fyrd. Godwin! Use the sacks for the bread too!’

I was taking just over three hundred men, leaving behind barely enough troops to defend the ramparts of Ceaster and Brunanburh. It might sound simple to say I was leading three hundred men, as if all we had to do was mount our horses, leave Ceaster and ride eastwards, but it takes time to organise the army. We had to carry our own food. We would be riding into country where food could be bought, but never enough for all of us. The Northmen would steal what they wanted, but we paid because we rode in our own country, and so I had a packhorse laden with silver coins and guarded by two of my warriors. And we would number well over three hundred because many men would take servants, some would take the women they could not bear to leave behind, and then there were the boys to lead the spare horses and the herd of packhorses laden with armour, weapons, and the sacks of salted meat, smoked fish, hard-baked bread, and thick-rinded cheese.

‘You do know what happens at Easter!’ Ceolnoth demanded sternly.

‘Of course I know,’ I said, ‘we make babies.’

‘That is the most ridiculous …’ Ceolberht began to protest, then went silent when his brother glared at him.

‘It’s my favourite feast,’ I continued happily. ‘Easter is baby-making day!’

‘It is the most solemn and joyous feast of the Christian year,’ Ceolnoth lectured me, ‘solemn because we remember the agony of our Saviour’s death, and joyous because of His resurrection.’

‘Amen,’ Father Wissian said.

Wissian was another Mercian, a young man with a shock of prematurely white hair. I rather liked Wissian, but he was cowed by the twins. Father Cuthbert stood beside him, blind and smiling. He had heard this argument before and was enjoying it. I glowered at the priests. ‘Why is it called Easter?’ I demanded.

‘Because our Lord died and was resurrected in the east, of course,’ Ceolnoth answered.

‘Horse shit,’ I said, ‘it’s called Easter because it’s Eostre’s feast, and you know it.’

‘It is not …’ Ceolberht began indignantly.

‘Eostre!’ I overrode him. ‘Goddess of the spring! Goddess of baby-making! You Christians stole both her name and her feast!’

‘Ignore him,’ Ceolnoth said, but he knew I was right. Eostre is the goddess of the spring, and a merry goddess she is too, which means many babies are born in January. The Christians, of course, try to stop the merriment, claiming that the name Easter is all about the east, but as usual the Christians are spouting nonsense. Easter is Eostre’s feast and despite all the sermons that insisted feast was solemn and sacred, most folk had a half memory of their duties towards Eostre and so the babies duly arrived every winter. In the three years I had lived at Ceaster I had always insisted on a fair to celebrate Eostre’s feast. There were fire-walkers and jugglers, musicians and acrobats, wrestling matches and horse races. There were booths selling everything from pottery to jewellery, and there was dancing. The priests disapproved of the dancing, but folk danced anyway, and the dances ensured that the babies came on time.

But this year was going to be different. The Christians had decided to create a Bishop of Ceaster and had set Easter as the date of his enthronement. The new bishop was called Leofstan, and I had never met the man and knew little of him except that he came from Wessex and had an exaggerated reputation for piety. He was a scholar, I had been told, and was married, but on being named as the new bishop he had famously sworn to fast three days in every week and to stay celibate. Blind Father Cuthbert, who revelled in nonsense, had told me of the new bishop’s oath, knowing it would amuse me. ‘He did what?’ I asked.

‘He vowed to give up pleasuring his wife, lord.’

‘Maybe she’s old and ugly?’

‘Men say she’s comely,’ Father Cuthbert said dubiously, ‘but our bishop-to-be says that our Lord gave up His life for us and the very least we can do is to give up our carnal pleasures for Him.’

‘The man’s an idiot,’ I had said.

‘I can’t agree with you,’ Cuthbert said slyly, ‘but yes, lord, Leofstan’s an idiot.’

The idiot’s consecration was what had brought Ceolnoth and Ceolberht to Ceaster. They were planning the ceremonies and had invited abbots, bishops, and priests from all across Mercia, from Wessex, and from even further afield in Frankia. ‘We need to ensure their safety,’ Ceolnoth insisted now. ‘We have promised them the city will be defended against any attack. Eighty men isn’t enough!’ he said scornfully.

I pretended to be worried. ‘You mean your churchmen might all be slaughtered if the Danes come?’

‘Of course!’ Then he saw my smile and that only increased his fury. ‘We need five hundred men! King Edward might come! The Lady Æthelflaed will certainly be here!’

‘She won’t,’ I said. ‘She’ll be with me, fighting Ragnall. If the Northmen come you’d better just pray. Your god is supposed to work miracles, isn’t he?’

Æthelflaed, I knew, would come north as soon as my messengers reached Gleawecestre. Those same messengers would then order new ships from the boatbuilders along the Sæfern. I would have preferred to buy ships from Lundene where the yards employed skilled Frisian boatbuilders, but for now we would buy three vessels from the shipwrights on the Sæfern. ‘Tell them I want their smaller ships,’ I told the messengers, ‘no more than thirty oars on each side!’ The Sæfern men built heavy ships, wide and deep, which could ride the rough seas to Ireland, but such vessels would be cumbersome in a shallow river. There was no hurry. The men who would man those ships were riding east with me, and in our absence I ordered Rædwald to start rebuilding the wharf. He would do the job well, though slowly.

I had sent my son ahead with fifty men, all mounted on light fast horses. They had left the day before and their job was to pursue the enemy, attack their forage parties and ambush their scouts. Beadwulf was already following Ragnall’s men, but his task was simply to report back to me where the army went ashore, and that must happen soon because the river became unnavigable after a few miles. Once ashore, Ragnall’s army would spread out to find horses, food, and slaves, and my son had been sent to slow them, annoy them, and, if he was sensible, avoid a major fight with them.

‘What if Ragnall goes north?’ Finan asked me.

‘I told Uhtred not to leave Saxon land,’ I said. I knew what Finan was asking. If Ragnall chose to take his men north he would be entering Northumbria, a land ruled by the Danes, and if my son and his war-band followed they would find themselves in enemy land, outnumbered and surrounded.

‘And you think he’ll obey you?’ Finan asked.

‘He’s no fool.’

Finan half smiled. ‘He’s like you.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning he’s like you, so as like or not he’ll chase Ragnall halfway to Scotland before he comes to his senses.’ He stooped to tighten his saddle’s girth. ‘Besides, how can you tell where Mercia ends and Northumbria begins?’

‘He’ll be careful,’ I said.

‘He’d better be, lord.’ He put his foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle where he settled himself, collected the reins, and turned to look at the four priests. They were talking to each other, heads bowed, hands gesticulating. ‘What did they want?’

‘For me to leave an army here to protect their damned bishops.’

Finan sneered at that, then turned and stared northwards. ‘Life’s a crock of shit, isn’t it?’ he said bitterly. I said nothing, just watched as Finan loosened his sword, Soul-Stealer, in its scabbard. He had buried his son or nephew beside the river, digging the grave himself and marking it with a stone. ‘Families,’ he said bitterly, ‘now let’s go and kill more of the bastards.’

I pulled myself up into the saddle. The sun was up now, but still low in the east where it was shrouded by grey clouds. A chill wind blew from the Irish Sea. Men were mounting and the last spears were being tied to packhorses when a horn sounded from the northern gate. That horn only sounded if the sentries had seen something worth my attention and so I kicked my horse up the main street and my men, thinking we were leaving, followed. The horn sounded again as I cantered past Ceaster’s great hall, then a third time as I slid from the saddle and climbed the stone steps that led to the rampart above the gate arch.

A dozen horsemen were approaching, spurring their stallions across the Roman cemetery, coming as fast as they could ride. I recognised my son’s grey horse, then saw Beadwulf was with him. They slewed to a stop just beyond the ditch and my son looked up. ‘They’re at Eads Byrig,’ he called.

‘A thousand of the bastards,’ Beadwulf added.

I instinctively looked eastwards, even though I knew Eads Byrig was not visible from the gateway. But it was close. It lay no further to the east than Brunanburh did to the west. ‘They’re digging in!’ my son shouted.

‘What is it?’ Finan had joined me on the rampart.

‘Ragnall’s not going north,’ I said, ‘and he’s not going south.’

‘Then where?’

‘He’s here,’ I said, still staring east. ‘He’s coming here.’

To Ceaster.

Eads Byrig lay on a low ridge that ran north and south. The hill was simply a higher part of the ridge, a grassy hump rising like an island above the oaks and sycamores that grew thick about its base. The slopes were mostly shallow, an easy stroll, except that the ancient people who had lived in Britain long before my ancestors had crossed the sea, indeed before even the Romans came, had ringed the hill with walls and ditches. They were not stone walls, as the Romans had made at Lundene and Ceaster, nor wooden palisades as we build, but walls made of earth. They had dug a deep ditch all around the hill’s long crest and thrown the soil up to make a steep embankment inside the ditch, then made a second ditch and wall inside the first, and though the long years and the hard rain had eroded the double walls and half filled the two ditches, the defences were still formidable. The hill’s name meant Ead’s stronghold, and doubtless some Saxon called Ead had once lived there and used the walls to defend his herds and home, but the stronghold was much older than its name suggested. There were such grassy forts on high hills throughout Britain, proof that men have fought for this land as long as men have lived here, and I sometimes wonder whether a thousand years from now folk will still be making walls in Britain and setting sentries in the night to watch for enemies in the dawn.

It was difficult to approach Ead’s stronghold. The woods were dense and an ambush among the trees was all too easy. My son’s men had managed to get close to the ridge before Ragnall’s numbers forced them away. They had retreated to the open pastureland to the west of the forest, where I found them watching the thick woods. ‘They’re deepening the ditches,’ one of Beadwulf’s men greeted my arrival, ‘we could see the bastards shovelling away, lord.’

‘Cutting trees too, lord,’ Beadwulf added.

I could hear the axes working. They sounded far off, muffled by the spring foliage. ‘He’s making a burh,’ I said. Ragnall’s troops would be deepening the old ditches and raising the earth walls, on top of which they would build a wooden palisade. ‘Where did the ships land?’ I asked Beadwulf.

‘By the fish traps, lord.’ He nodded to the north, showing where he meant, then turned as a distant crash announced a tree’s fall. ‘They went aground before that. They took a fair time to get their ships off the mud.’

‘The ships are still there?’

He shrugged. ‘They were at dawn.’

‘They’ll be guarded,’ Finan warned me. He suspected I was thinking of attacking Ragnall’s ships and burning them, but that was the last thing I had in mind.

‘I’d rather he went back to Ireland,’ I said. ‘So leave his ships alone. I don’t want to trap the bastard here.’ I grimaced. ‘It looks as if the priests will get what they want.’

‘Which is?’ my son asked.

‘If Ragnall stays here,’ I said, ‘then so must we.’ I had thought to take my three hundred men eastwards to Liccelfeld where I could meet the forces Æthelflaed would send from Gleawecestre, but if Ragnall was staying at Eads Byrig then I must stay to protect Ceaster. I sent all the packhorses back to the city, and sent more messengers south to tell the reinforcements to abandon their march on Liccelfeld and to come to Ceaster instead. And then I waited.

I was waiting for Æthelflaed and her army of Mercia. I had three hundred men, and Ragnall had over a thousand, and more were joining him every day. It was frustrating. It was maddening. The garrison at Brunanburh could only watch as the beast-prowed ships rowed up the Mærse. There were two ships the first day and three the second, and still more every following day, ships heavy with men who had come from Ragnall’s furthest islands. Other men came by land, travelling from the Danish steadings in Northumbria, lured to Eads Byrig by the promise of Saxon silver, Saxon land, and Saxon slaves. Ragnall’s army grew larger and I could do nothing.

He outnumbered me by at least three to one, and to attack him I needed to take men through the forest that surrounded Eads Byrig, and that forest was a death-trap. An old Roman road ran just south of the hill, but the trees had invaded the road, and once among their thick foliage we would not be able to see more than thirty or forty paces. I sent a party of scouts into the trees and only three of those four men returned. The fourth was beheaded, and his naked body thrown out onto the pastureland. My son wanted to take all our men and crash through the woodland in search of a fight. ‘What good will that do?’ I asked him.

‘They must have men guarding their ships,’ he said, ‘and others building their new wall.’

‘So?’

‘So we won’t have to fight all his men. Maybe just half of them?’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I said, ‘because that’s exactly what he wants us to do.’

‘He wants to attack Ceaster,’ my son insisted.

‘No, that’s what I want him to do.’

And that was the mutual trap Ragnall and I had set each other. He might outnumber me, but even so he would be reluctant to assault Ceaster. His younger brother had attempted to take the city and had lost his right eye and the best part of his army in the attempt. Ceaster’s walls were formidable. Ragnall’s men needed to cross a deep, flooded ditch spiked with elm stakes, then climb a wall twice the height of a man while we rained spears, axes, boulders and buckets of shit on them. He would lose. His men would die under our ramparts. I wanted him to come to the city, I wanted him to attack our walls, I wanted to kill his men at Ceaster’s defences, and he knew I wanted that, which is why he did not come.

But we could not assault him either. Even if I could lead every fit man through the forest unscathed I would still have to climb Eads Byrig and cross the high ditch and clamber up the earthen bank where a new wall was being made, and Ragnall’s Northmen and Irishmen would outnumber us and have a great killing that their poets would turn into a triumphant battle song. What would they call it? The Song of Ragnall the Mighty? It would tell of blades falling, foemen dying, of a ditch filled with blood, and of Uhtred, great Uhtred, cut down in his battle glory. Ragnall wanted that song, he wanted me to attack him, and I knew he wanted it, which is why I did not oblige him. I waited.

We were not idle. I had men driving new sharpened stakes into the ditch around Ceaster, and other men riding south and east to raise the fyrd, that army of farmers and free men who could man a burh wall even if they could not fight a Norse shield wall in open battle. And each day I sent a hundred horsemen to circle Eads Byrig, riding well south of the great forest and then curling northwards. I led that patrol on the third day, the same day that four more ships rowed up the Mærse, each holding at least forty warriors.

We wore mail and carried weapons, though we left our heavy shields behind. I wore a rusted coat of mail and an old undecorated helmet. I carried Serpent-Breath, but left my standard-bearer behind in Ceaster. I did not ride in my full war-glory because I did not seek a fight. We were scouting, looking for Ragnall’s forage parties and for his patrolling scouts. He had sent no men towards Ceaster, which was puzzling, so what was he doing?

We crossed the ridge four or five miles south of Ragnall’s hill. Once on the low crest I spurred my horse to the top of a knoll and stared northwards, though I could see almost nothing of what happened on that distant hilltop. I knew the palisade was being built there, that men were pounding oak trunks into the summit of the earthen bank, and just as surely Ragnall knew I would not waste my men’s lives by attacking that wall. So what was he hoping for? That I would be a fool, lose patience and attack anyway?

‘Lord,’ Sihtric interrupted my thoughts. He was pointing north-east, and I saw, perhaps a mile away, a dozen horsemen. More riders were further off, perhaps a score of them, all of them heading eastwards.

‘So they’ve found horses,’ I said. From what we had seen, and from our questioning of the prisoners we had taken, the enemy had brought very few horses on their ships, but the forage parties, I assumed that was what the horsemen were, proved that they had managed to capture a few, and those few, in turn, could ride further afield to find more, though by now the countryside was alerted to their presence. There were few steadings here because this was border country, land that belonged neither to the Danes of Northumbria nor to the Saxons of Mercia, and what folk lived here would already have left their homes and driven their livestock south to the nearest burh. Fear ruled this land now.

We rode on eastwards, dropping from the ridge into wooded country where we followed an overgrown drover’s path. I sent no scouts ahead, reckoning that Ragnall’s men did not have enough horses to send a war-band large enough to confront us, nor did we see the enemy, not even when we turned north and rode into the pastureland where we had glimpsed the horsemen earlier. ‘They’re staying out of our way,’ Sihtric said, sounding disappointed.

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘The more he kills of us, lord, the fewer to fight on Ceaster’s walls.’

I ignored that foolish answer. Ragnall had no intention of killing his men beneath Ceaster’s ramparts, not yet anyway. So what did he plan? I looked back in puzzlement. It was a dry morning, or at least it was not raining, though the air felt damp and the wind was chill, but it had rained hard in the night and the ground was sopping wet, yet I had seen no hoofmarks crossing the drover’s path. If Ragnall wanted horses and food then he would find the richer steadings to our south, deeper inside Mercia, yet it seemed he had sent no men that way. Perhaps I had missed the tracks, but I doubted I could have overlooked something so obvious. And Ragnall was no fool. He knew reinforcements must join us from the south, yet it seemed he had no patrols searching for those new enemies.

Why?

Because, I thought, he did not care about our reinforcements. I was staring northwards, seeing nothing there except thick woods and damp fields, and I was thinking what Ragnall had achieved. He had taken away our small fleet, which meant we could not cross the Mærse easily, not unless we rode even further eastwards to find an unguarded crossing. He was making a fortress on Eads Byrig, a stronghold that was virtually impregnable until we had sufficient men to overwhelm his army. And there was only one reason to fortify Eads Byrig, and that was to threaten Ceaster, yet he was sending no patrols towards the city, nor was he trying to stop any reinforcements reaching the garrison. ‘Is there water on Eads Byrig?’ I asked Sihtric.

‘There’s a spring to the south-east of the hill,’ he said, sounding dubious, ‘but it’s just a trickle, lord. Not enough for a whole army.’

‘He’s not strong enough to attack Ceaster,’ I said, thinking aloud, ‘and he knows we’re not going to waste men against Eads Byrig’s walls.’

‘He just wants a fight!’ Sihtric said dismissively.

‘No,’ I said, ‘he doesn’t. Not with us.’ There was an idea in my head. I could not say it aloud because I did not understand it yet, but I sensed what Ragnall was doing. Eads Byrig was a deception, I thought, and we were not the enemy, not yet. We would be in time, but not yet. I turned on Sihtric. ‘Take the men back to Ceaster,’ I told him. ‘Go back by the same path we came on. Let the bastards see you. And tell Finan to patrol to the edge of the forest tomorrow.’

‘Lord?’ he asked again.

‘Tell Finan it should be a big patrol! A hundred and fifty men at least! Let Ragnall see them! Tell him to patrol from the road to the river, make him think we’re planning an attack from the west.’

‘An attack from the …’ he began.

‘Just do it,’ I snarled. ‘Berg! You come with me!’

Ragnall had stopped us from crossing the river and he was making us concentrate all our attention on Eads Byrig. He seemed to be behaving cautiously, making a great fortress and deliberately not provoking us by sending war-bands to the south, yet everything I knew about Ragnall suggested he was anything but a cautious man. He was a warrior. He moved fast, struck hard, and called himself a king. He was a gold-giver, a lord, a patron of warriors. Men would follow him so long as his swords and spears took captives and captured farmland, and no man became rich by building a fortress in a forest and inviting attack. ‘Tell Finan I’ll be back tomorrow or the day after,’ I told Sihtric, then beckoned to Berg and rode eastwards. ‘Tomorrow or the day after!’ I shouted back to Sihtric.

Berg Skallagrimmrson was a Norseman who had sworn loyalty to me, a loyalty he had proven in the three years since I had saved his life on a beach in Wales. He could have ridden north any time to the kingdom of Northumbria and there found a Dane or a fellow Norseman who would welcome a young, strong warrior, but Berg had stayed true. He was a thin-faced, blue-eyed young man, serious and thoughtful. He wore his hair long in Norse fashion, and had persuaded Sihtric’s daughter to make a scribble on his left cheek with oak-gall ink and a needle. ‘What is it?’ I had asked him as the scars were still healing.

‘It’s a wolf’s head, lord!’ he had said, sounding indignant. The wolf’s head was my symbol and the inked device was his way of showing loyalty, but even when it healed it looked more like a smeared pig’s head.

Now the two of us rode eastwards. I still did not fear any enemy war-band because I had a suspicion of what Ragnall really wanted, and it was that suspicion that kept us riding into the afternoon, by which time we had turned north and were following a Roman road that led to Northumbria. We were still well to the east of Eads Byrig, but as the afternoon waned we climbed a low hill and I saw where a bridge carried the road across the river, and there, clustered close to two cottages that had been built on the Mærse’s north bank, were men in mail. Men with spears. ‘How many?’ I asked Berg, whose eyes were younger than mine.

‘At least forty, lord.’

‘He doesn’t want us to cross the river, does he?’ I suggested. ‘Which means we need to get across.’

We rode east for an hour, keeping a cautious eye for enemies, and at dusk we turned north and came to where the Mærse slid slow between pastureland. ‘Can your horse swim?’ I asked Berg.

‘We’ll find out, lord.’

The river was wide here, at least fifty paces, and its banks were earthen bluffs. The water was murky, but I sensed it was deep and so, rather than risk swimming the beasts over, we turned back upstream until we discovered a place where a muddy track led into the river from the south and another climbed the northern bank, suggesting this was a ford. It was certainly no major crossing place, but rather a spot where some farmer had discovered he could cross with his cattle, but I suspected the river was usually lower. Rain had swollen it.

‘We have to cross,’ I said, and spurred my horse into the water. The river came up to my boots, then above them, and I could feel the horse struggling against the current. He slipped once, and I lurched sideways, thought I must be thrown into the water, but somehow the stallion found his footing and surged ahead, driven more by fear than by my urging. Berg came behind and kicked his horse faster so that he passed me and left the river before I did, his horse flailing up the far bank in a flurry of water and mud.

‘I hate crossing rivers,’ I growled as I joined him.

We found a spinney of ash trees a mile beyond the river and we spent the night there, the horses tethered while we tried to sleep. Berg, being young, slept like the dead, but I was awake much of the night, listening to the wind in the leaves. I had not dared light a fire. This land, like the country south of the Mærse, appeared deserted, but that did not mean no enemy was near, and so I shivered through the darkness. I slept fitfully as the dawn approached, waking to see Berg carefully cutting a lump of bread into two pieces. ‘For you, lord,’ he said, holding out the larger piece.

I took the smaller, then stood, aching in every bone. I walked to the edge of the trees and gazed out at greyness. Grey sky, grey land, grey mist. It was the wolf-light of dawn. I heard Berg moving behind me. ‘Shall I saddle the horses, lord?’ he asked.

‘Not yet.’

He came and stood beside me. ‘Where are we, lord?’

‘Northumbria,’ I said. ‘Everything north of the Mærse is Northumbria.’

‘Your country, lord.’

‘My country,’ I agreed. I was born in Northumbria and I hope to die in Northumbria, though my birth had been on the eastern coast, far from these mist-shrouded fields by the Mærse. My land is Bebbanburg, the fortress by the sea, which had been treacherously stolen by my uncle and, though he was long dead, the great stronghold was still held by his son. One day, I promised myself, I would slaughter my cousin and take back my birthright. It was a promise I made every day of my life.

Berg gazed into the grey dampness. ‘Who rules here?’ he asked.

I half smiled at the question. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘have you heard of Sygfrothyr?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Knut Onehand?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Halfdan Othirson?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Eowels the Strong?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Eowels wasn’t that strong,’ I said wryly, ‘because he was killed by Ingver Brightsword. Have you heard of Ingver?’

‘No, lord.’

‘Sygfrothyr, Knut, Halfdan, Eowels, and Ingver,’ I repeated the names, ‘and in the last ten years each of those men has called himself King of Jorvik. And only one of them, Ingver, is alive today. You know where Jorvik is?’

‘To the north, lord. A city.’

‘It was a great city once,’ I said bleakly. ‘The Romans made it.’

‘Like Ceaster, lord?’ he asked earnestly. Berg knew little of Britain. He had served Rognvald, a Norseman who had died in a welter of bloodshed on a Welsh beach. Since then Berg had served me, living in Ceaster and fighting the cattle-raiders who came from Northumbria or the Welsh kingdoms. He was eager to learn though.

‘Jorvik is like Ceaster,’ I said, ‘and like Ceaster its strength lies in its walls. It guards a river, but the man who rules in Jorvik can claim to rule Northumbria. Ingver Brightsword is King of Jorvik, but he calls himself King of Northumbria.’

‘And is he?’

‘He pretends he is,’ I said, ‘but in truth he’s just a chieftain in Jorvik. But no one else can call himself King of Northumbria unless he holds Jorvik.’

‘But it’s not strong?’ Berg asked.

‘Eoferwic’s walls are strong,’ I said, using the Saxon name for Jorvik, ‘they’re very strong! They’re formidable! My father died attacking those walls. And the city lies in rich country. The man who rules Eoferwic can be a gold-giver, he can buy men, he can give estates, he can breed horses, he can command an army.’

‘And this is what King Ingver does?’

‘Ingver couldn’t command a dog to piss,’ I sneered. ‘He has maybe two hundred warriors. And outside the walls? He has nothing. Other men rule beyond the walls, and one day one of those men will kill Ingver as Ingver killed Eowels, and the new man will call himself king. Sygfrothyr, Knut, Halfdan, and Eowels, they all called themselves King of Northumbria and they were all killed by a rival. Northumbria isn’t a kingdom, it’s a pit of rats and terriers.’

‘Like Ireland,’ Berg said.

‘Like Ireland?’

‘A country of little kings,’ he said. He frowned for a moment. ‘Sometimes one calls himself the High King? And maybe he is, but there are still many little kings, and they squabble like dogs, and you think such dogs will be easy to kill, but when you attack them? They come together.’

‘There’s no high king in Northumbria,’ I said, ‘not yet.’

‘There will be?’

‘Ragnall,’ I said.

‘Ah!’ he said, understanding. ‘And one day we must take this land?’

‘One day,’ I said, and I wanted that day to be soon, but Æthelflaed, who ruled Mercia, insisted that first we drive the Danes from her country. She wanted to restore the ancient frontier of Mercia, and only then lead an army into Northumbria, and even then she would not invade unless she had her brother’s blessing, but now Ragnall had come and threatened to make the conquest of the north even more difficult.

We saddled the horses and rode slowly westwards. The Mærse made great lazy loops to our left, twisting through overgrown water meadows. No one farmed these lands. There had been Danes and Norsemen settled here once, their steadings fat in a fat land, but we had driven them northwards away from Ceaster, and thistles now grew tall where cattle had grazed. Two heron flew downriver. A light rain blew from the distant sea.

‘The Lady Æthelflaed is coming, lord?’ Berg asked me as we pushed the horses through a gap in a ragged hedge, then across a flooded ditch. The mist had lifted, though there were still patches above the river’s wide bends.

‘She’s coming!’ I said, and surprised myself by feeling a distinct pang of pleasure at the thought of seeing Æthelflaed again. ‘She was coming anyway for this nonsense with the new bishop.’ The enthronement was the sort of ceremony she enjoyed, though how anyone could endure three or four hours of chanting monks and ranting priests was beyond my understanding, just as it was beyond my understanding to know why bishops needed thrones. They would be demanding crowns next. ‘Now she’ll be bringing her whole army as well,’ I said.

‘And we’ll fight Ragnall?’

‘She’ll want to drive him out of Mercia,’ I said, ‘and if he stays behind his new walls that will be a bloody business.’ I had turned north towards a low hill that I remembered from raids we had made across the river. The hill was crowned with a stand of pine trees, and from its summit we could see Ceaster on a clear day. There was no chance of seeing the city on this grey day, but I could see Eads Byrig rising green from the trees on the river’s far side, and I could see the raw timber of the new wall atop the fort’s embankment, and, much closer, I could see Ragnall’s fleet clustered at a great bend of the Mærse.

And I saw a bridge.

At first I was not sure what I was seeing, but I asked Berg, whose eyes were so much younger than mine. He gazed for a while, frowned, and finally nodded. ‘They make a bridge with their boats, lord.’

It was a crude bridge made by mooring ships hull to hull so that they stretched across the river and carried a crude plank roadway on their decks. So many horses and men had already used the makeshift bridge that they had worn a new road in the fields on this side of the river, a muddy streak that showed dark against the pale pasture and then fanned out into lesser streaks that all led northwards. There were men riding the tracks now, three small groups spurring away from the Mærse and going deeper into Northumbria, and one large band of horsemen travelling south towards the river.

And on the river’s southern bank where the trees grew dense there was smoke. At first I took it for a thickening of the river mist, but the longer I looked the more I became convinced that there were campfires in the woodland. A lot of fires, sifting their smoke above the leaves, and that smoke told me that Ragnall was keeping many of his men beside the Mærse. There was a garrison at Eads Byrig, a garrison busy making a palisade, but not enough water there for the whole army. And that army, instead of making tracks south into Mercia, was trampling new paths northwards. ‘We can go home now,’ I said.

‘Already?’ Berg sounded surprised.

‘Already,’ I said. Because I knew what Ragnall was doing.

We went back the way we had come. We rode slowly, sparing the horses. A small rain blew from behind us, carried by a cold morning wind from the Irish Sea, and that made me remember Finan’s words that Ragnall had made a pact with the Uí Néill. The Irish rarely crossed the sea except to trade and, once in a while, to look for slaves along Britain’s western coast. I knew there were Irish settlements in Scotland, and even some on the wild western shore of Northumbria, but I had never seen Irish warriors in Mercia or Wessex. We had enough trouble with the Danes and the Norse, let alone dealing with the Irish. It was true that Ragnall only had one crew of Irishmen, but Finan boasted that one crew of his countrymen was worth three from any other tribe. ‘We fight like mad dogs,’ he had told me proudly. ‘If it comes to a battle then Ragnall will have his Irish at the front. He’ll let them loose on us.’ I had seen Finan fight often enough and I believed him.

‘Lord!’ Berg startled me. ‘Behind us, lord!’

I turned to see three riders following us. We were in open country with nowhere to hide, but I cursed myself for carelessness. I had been daydreaming, trying to decide what Ragnall would do, and I had not looked behind. If we had seen the three men earlier we might have turned away into a copse or thicket, but now there was no avoiding the horsemen, who were coming fast.

‘I’ll talk to them,’ I told Berg, then turned my horse and waited.

The three were young, none more than twenty years old. Their horses were good, spirited and brisk. All three wore mail, though none had a shield or helmet. They spread out as they approached, and then curbed their horses some ten paces away. They wore their hair long and had the inked patterns on their faces that told me they were Northmen, but what else did I expect on this side of the river? ‘I wish you good morning,’ I said politely.

The young man in the centre of the three kicked his horse forward. His mail was good, his sword scabbard was decorated with silver panels, while the hammer about his neck glinted with gold. He had long black hair, oiled and smoothed, then gathered with a black ribbon at the nape of his neck. He looked at my horse, then up at me, then gazed at Serpent-Breath. ‘That’s a good sword, Grandad.’

‘It’s a good sword,’ I said mildly.

‘Old men don’t need swords,’ he said, and his two companions laughed.

‘My name,’ I still spoke softly, ‘is Hefring Fenirson and this is my son, Berg Hefringson.’

‘Tell me, Hefring Fenirson,’ the young man said, ‘why you ride eastwards.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because Jarl Ragnall is calling men to his side, and you ride away from him.’

‘Jarl Ragnall has no need of old men,’ I said.

‘True, but he has need of young men.’ He looked at Berg.

‘My son has no skill with a sword,’ I said. In truth Berg was lethally fast with a blade, but there was an innocence to his face that suggested he might have no love for fighting. ‘And who,’ I asked respectfully, ‘are you?’

He hesitated, plainly reluctant to give me his name, then shrugged as if to suggest it did not matter. ‘Othere Hardgerson,’ he said.

‘You came with the ships from Ireland?’ I asked.

‘Where we are from is none of your concern,’ he said. ‘Did you swear loyalty to Jarl Ragnall?’

‘I swear loyalty to no man,’ I said, and that was true. Æthelflaed had my oath.

Othere sneered at that. ‘You are a jarl, perhaps?’

‘I am a farmer.’

‘A farmer,’ he said derisively, ‘has no need of a fine horse. He has no need of a sword. He has no need of a coat of mail, even that rusty coat. And as for your son,’ he kicked his horse past mine to stare at Berg, ‘if he cannot fight then he too has no need of mail, sword or horse.’

‘You wish to buy them?’ I asked.

‘Buy them!’ Othere laughed at that suggestion. ‘I will give you a choice, old man,’ he said, turning back to me. ‘You can ride with us and swear loyalty to Jarl Ragnall or you can give us your horses, weapons, and mail, and go on your way. Which is it to be?’

I knew Othere’s kind. He was a young warrior, raised to fight and taught to despise any man who did not earn a living with a sword. He was bored. He had come across the sea on the promise of land and plunder, and though Ragnall’s present caution was doubtless justified, it had left Othere frustrated. He was being forced to wait while Ragnall gathered more men, and those men were evidently being recruited from Northumbria, from the Danes and Norsemen who had settled that riven country. Othere, ordered to the dull business of patrolling the river’s northern bank to guard against any Saxon incursion across the Mærse, wanted to start the conquest of Britain, and if Ragnall would not lead him into battle then he would seek a fight of his own. Besides, Othere was an over-confident young bully, and what did he have to fear from an old man?

I suppose I was old. My beard had turned grey and my face showed the years, but even so, Othere and his two companions should have been more cautious. What farmer would ride a swift horse? Or carry a great sword? Or wear mail? ‘I give you a choice, Othere Hardgerson,’ I said, ‘you can either ride away and thank whatever gods you worship that I let you live, or you can take the sword from me. Your choice, boy.’

He gazed at me for a heartbeat, looking for that moment as if he did not believe what he had just heard, then he laughed. ‘On horse or on foot, old man?’

‘Your choice, boy,’ I said again, and this time invested the word ‘boy’ with pure scorn.

‘Oh, you’re dead, old man,’ he retorted. ‘On foot, you old bastard.’ He swung easily from the saddle and dropped lithely to the damp grass. I assumed he had chosen to fight on foot because his horse was not battle-trained, but that suited me. I also dismounted, but did it slowly as though my old bones and aching muscles hampered me. ‘My sword,’ Othere said, ‘is called Blood-Drinker. A man should know what weapon sends him to his grave.’

‘My sword …’

‘Why do I need to know the name of your sword?’ he interrupted me, then laughed again as he pulled Blood-Drinker from her scabbard. He was right-handed. ‘I shall make it quick, old man. Are you ready?’ The last question was mocking. He did not care if I was ready, instead he was sneering because I had unsheathed Serpent-Breath and was holding her clumsily, as if she felt unfamiliar in my hand. I even tried holding her in my left hand before putting her back in my right, all to suggest to him that I was unpractised. I was so convincing that he lowered his blade and shook his head. ‘You’re being stupid, old man. I don’t want to kill you, just give me the sword.’

‘Gladly,’ I said, and moved towards him. He held out his left hand and I sliced Serpent-Breath up with a twist of my wrist and knocked that hand away, brought the blade back hard to beat Blood-Drinker aside, then lunged once to drive Serpent-Breath’s tip against his breast. She struck the mail above his breastbone, driving him back, and he half stumbled and roared in anger as he swept his sword around in a hay-making slice that should have sheared my head from my body, but I already had Serpent-Breath lifted in the parry, the blades struck and I took one more step forward and slammed her hilt into his face. He managed to half turn away so that the blow landed on his jawbone rather than his nose.

He tried to cut my neck, but had no room for the stroke, and I stepped back, flicking Serpent-Breath up so that her tip cut through his chin, though not with any great force. She drew blood and the sight of it must have prompted one of his companions to draw his sword, and I heard but did not see, a clash of blades, and knew Berg was fighting. There was a gasp behind me, another ringing clash of steel on steel, and Othere’s eyes widened as he stared at whatever happened. ‘Come, boy,’ I said, ‘you’re fighting me, not Berg.’

‘Then to the grave, old man,’ he snarled, and stepped forward, sword swinging, but that was easy to parry. He had no great sword-craft. He was probably faster than I was, he was, after all, younger, but I had a lifetime of sword knowledge. He pressed me, cutting again and again, and I parried every stroke, and only after six or seven of his savage swings did I suddenly step back, lowering my blade, and his sword hissed past me, unbalancing him, and I rammed Serpent-Breath forward, skewering his sword shoulder, piercing the mail and mangling the flesh beneath, and I saw his arm drop, and I backswung my blade onto his neck and held it there, blood welling along Serpent-Breath’s edge. ‘My name, boy, is Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and this sword is called Serpent-Breath.’

‘Lord!’ He dropped to his knees, unable to lift his arm. ‘Lord,’ he said again, ‘I didn’t know!’

‘Do you always bully old men?’

‘I didn’t know!’ he pleaded.

‘Hold your sword tight, boy,’ I said, ‘and look for me in Valhalla,’ and I grimaced as I dragged the blade back, sawing at his neck, then thrust it forward, still sawing and he made a whimpering noise as his blood spurted far across the damp pasture. He made a choking sound. ‘Hold onto Blood-Drinker!’ I snarled at him. He seemed to nod, then the light went from his eyes and he fell forward. The sword was still in his hand, so I would meet him again across the ale-board of the gods.

Berg had disarmed one of the remaining horsemen, while the other was already two hundred paces away and spurring his horse frantically. ‘Should I kill this one, lord?’ Berg asked me.

I shook my head. ‘He can take a message.’ I walked to the young man’s horse and hauled him hard downwards. He fell from the saddle and sprawled on the turf. ‘Who are you?’ I demanded.

He gave a name, I forget what it was now. He was a boy, younger than Berg, and he answered our questions willingly enough. Ragnall was making a great wall at Eads Byrig, but he had also made an encampment beside the river where the boats bridged the water. He was collecting men there, making a new army. ‘And where will the army go?’ I asked the boy.

‘To take the Saxon town,’ he said.

‘Ceaster?’

He shrugged. He did not know the name. ‘The town nearby, lord.’

‘Are you making ladders?’

‘Ladders? No, lord.’

We stripped Othere’s corpse of its mail, took his sword and horse, then did the same to the boy Berg had disarmed. He was not badly wounded, more frightened than hurt, and he shivered as he watched us remount. ‘Tell Ragnall,’ I told him, ‘that the Saxons of Mercia are coming. Tell him that his dead will number in the thousands. Tell him that his own death is just days away. Tell him that promise comes from Uhtred of Bebbanburg.’

He nodded, too frightened to speak.

‘Say my name aloud, boy,’ I ordered him, ‘so I know you can repeat it to Ragnall.’

‘Uhtred of Bebbanburg,’ he stammered.

‘Good boy,’ I said, and then we rode home.