Читать книгу Death of Kings - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 12

Yule came, Yule went, and storms followed, bellowing from the North Sea to drift snow across the dead land. Father Willibald, the West Saxon priests, the Mercian twins and the singing monks were forced to stay at Buccingahamm until the weather cleared, then I gave them Cerdic and twenty spearmen to escort them safe home. They took the magic fish with them, and also Ivann, the prisoner. Alfred, if he still lived, would want to hear of Eohric’s treachery. I gave a letter for Æthelflaed with Cerdic, and on his return he promised me he had given it to one of her trusted maidservants, but he brought back no answer. ‘I wasn’t allowed to see the lady,’ Cerdic told me, ‘they’ve got her mewed up tight.’

‘Mewed up?’

‘In the palace, lord. They’re all weeping and wailing.’

‘But Alfred lived when you left?’

‘He still lived, lord, but the priests said it was only prayer keeping him alive.’

‘They would say that.’

‘And Lord Edward is betrothed.’

‘Betrothed?’

‘I went to the ceremony, lord. He’s going to marry the Lady Ælflæd.’

‘The ealdorman’s daughter?’

‘Yes, lord. She was the king’s choice.’

‘Poor Edward,’ I said, remembering Father Willibald’s gossip that Alfred’s heir had wanted to marry a girl from Cent. Ælflæd was daughter to Æthelhelm, Ealdorman of Sumorsæte, and presumably Alfred had wanted the marriage to tie Edward to the most powerful of Wessex’s noble families. I wondered what had happened to the girl from Cent.

Sigurd had gone back to his lands from where, in petulance, he sent raiders into Saxon Mercia to burn, kill, enslave and steal. It was border war, no different from the perpetual fighting between the Scots and the Northumbrians. None of his raiders touched my estates, but my fields lay south of Beornnoth’s wide lands and Sigurd concentrated his anger on Ealdorman Ælfwold, the son of the man who had died fighting beside me at Beamfleot, and he left Beornnoth’s territory unscathed, and that I thought was interesting. So in March, when stitchwort was whitening the hedgerows, I took fifteen men north to Beornnoth’s hall with a new year’s gift of cheese, ale and salted mutton. I found the old man wrapped in a fur cloak and slumped in his chair. His face was sunken, his eyes watery, and his lower lip trembled uncontrollably. He was dying. Beortsig, his son, watched me sullenly.

‘It’s time,’ I said, ‘to teach Sigurd a lesson.’

Beornnoth scowled. ‘Stop pacing around,’ he ordered me, ‘you make me feel old.’

‘You are old,’ I said.

He grimaced at that. ‘I’m like Alfred,’ he said, ‘I’m going to meet my god. I’m going to the judgement seat to find out who lives and who burns. They’ll let him into heaven, won’t they?’

‘They’ll welcome Alfred,’ I agreed, ‘and you?’

‘At least it will be warm in hell,’ he said, then feebly wiped some spittle from his beard. ‘So you want to fight Sigurd?’

‘I want to kill the bastard.’

‘You had your chance before Christmas,’ Beortsig said. I ignored him.

‘He’s waiting,’ Beornnoth said, ‘waiting for Alfred to die. He won’t attack till Alfred’s dead.’

‘He’s attacking now,’ I said.

Beornnoth shook his head. ‘Just raiding,’ he said dismissively, ‘and he’s pulled his fleet ashore at Snotengaham.’

‘Snotengaham?’ I asked, surprised. That was about as far inland as any seagoing ship could travel in Britain.

‘That tells you he’s not planning anything other than raids.’

‘It tells me he’s not planning seaborne raids,’ I said, ‘but what’s to stop him marching overland?’

‘Perhaps he will,’ Beornnoth allowed, ‘when Alfred dies. For now, he’s only stealing a few cattle.’

‘Then I want to steal a few of his cattle,’ I said.

Beortsig scowled and his father shrugged. ‘Why prod the devil when he’s dozing?’ the old man asked.

‘Ælfwold doesn’t think he’s dozing,’ I said.

Beornnoth laughed. ‘Ælfwold’s young,’ he said dismissively, ‘and he’s ambitious, he asks for trouble.’

You could divide the Saxon lords of Mercia into two camps, those who resented the West Saxon dominance of their land and those who welcomed it. Ælfwold’s father had supported Alfred, while Beornnoth harked back to earlier times when Mercia had its own king and, like others of his mind, he had refused to send troops to help me fight Haesten. He had preferred his men to be under Æthelred’s command, which meant they had garrisoned Gleawecestre against an attack that had never come. There had been bitterness between the two camps ever since, but Beornnoth was a decent enough man, or perhaps he was so close to death that he did not want to prolong old enmities. He invited us to stay for the night. ‘Tell me stories,’ he said, ‘I like stories. Tell me about Beamfleot.’ That was a generous invitation, an implicit admission that his men had been in the wrong place the previous summer.

I did not tell the whole story. Instead, in his hall, when the great fire lit the beams red and the ale had made men boisterous, I told how the elder Ælfwold had died. How he had charged with me and how we had scattered the Danish camp, and how we rampaged among the frightened men at the hill’s edge, and then how the Danish reinforcements had counter-charged and the fighting had become bitter. Men listened intently. Almost every man in the hall had stood in the shield wall, and they knew the fear of that moment. I told how my horse had been killed, and how we made a circle of our shields and fought against the screaming Danes who had so suddenly outnumbered us, and I described a death that Ælfwold would have wanted, telling how he killed his enemies, how he sent the pagan foemen to their graves, and how he defeated man after man until, at last, an axe blow split his helmet and felled him. I did not describe how he had looked at me so reproachfully, or the hatred in his dying words because he believed, falsely, that I had betrayed him. He died beside me, and at that moment I had been ready for death, knowing that the Danes must surely kill us all in that blood-reeking dawn, but then Steapa had come with the West Saxon troops and defeat had turned into sudden, unexpected triumph. Beornnoth’s followers hammered the tables in appreciation of the tale. Men like a battle-tale, which is why we employ poets to entertain us at night with tales of warriors and swords and shields and axes.

‘A good story,’ Beornnoth said.

‘Ælfwold’s death was your fault,’ a voice spoke from the hall.

For a moment I thought I had misheard, or that the comment was not spoken to me. There was silence as every man wondered the same.

‘We should never have fought!’ It was Sihtric speaking. He stood to shout at me and I saw he was drunk. ‘You never scouted the woods!’ he snarled. ‘And how many men died because you didn’t scout the woods?’ I know I looked too shocked to speak. Sihtric had been my servant, I had saved his life, I had taken him as a boy and made him a man and a warrior, I had given him gold, I had rewarded him as a lord is supposed to reward his followers, and now he was staring at me with pure loathing. Beortsig, of course, was enjoying the moment, his eyes flicking between me and Sihtric. Rypere, who was sitting on the same bench as his friend Sihtric, laid a hand on the standing man’s arm, but Sihtric shook it off. ‘How many men did you kill that day through carelessness?’ he shouted at me.

‘You’re drunk,’ I said harshly, ‘and tomorrow you will grovel to me, and perhaps I will forgive you.’

‘Lord Ælfwold would be alive if you had a scrap of sense,’ he yelled at me.

Some of my men tried to shout him down, but I shouted louder. ‘Come here, kneel to me!’

Instead, he spat towards me. The hall was in uproar now. Beornnoth’s men were encouraging Sihtric, while my men were looking horrified. ‘Give them swords!’ someone called.

Sihtric held out his hand. ‘Give me a blade!’ he shouted.

I started towards him, but Beornnoth lunged and caught my sleeve in a feeble grip. ‘Not in my hall, Lord Uhtred,’ he said, ‘not in my hall.’ I stopped, and Beornnoth struggled to his feet. He had to grip the table’s edge with one hand to stay upright, while his other hand pointed shakily towards Sihtric. ‘Take him away!’ he ordered.

‘And you stay away from me!’ I shouted at him. ‘And that whore wife of yours!’

Sihtric tried to break away from the men holding him, but they had too tight a grip and he was too drunk. They dragged him from the hall to the jeers of Beornnoth’s followers. Beortsig had enjoyed my discomfiture and was laughing. His father frowned at him, then sat heavily. ‘I am sorry,’ he grunted.

‘He’ll be sorry,’ I said vengefully.

There was no sign of Sihtric next morning and I did not ask where Beornnoth had him hidden. We readied ourselves to leave, and Beornnoth was helped out to the courtyard by two of his men. ‘I fear,’ he said, ‘that I’ll die before Alfred.’

‘I hope you live many years,’ I said dutifully.

‘There’ll be pain in Britain when Alfred goes,’ he said. ‘All the certainties will die with him.’ His voice faded. He was still embarrassed by the previous night’s argument in his hall. He had watched one of my own men insult me, and he had prevented me from giving punishment, and the incident lay between us like a burning coal. Yet both of us pretended it had not happened.

‘Alfred’s son is a good man,’ I said.

‘Edward’s young,’ Beornnoth said scornfully, ‘and who knows what he’ll be?’ He sighed. ‘Life is a story without an end,’ he said, ‘but I’d like to hear a few more verses before I die.’ He shook his head. ‘Edward won’t rule.’

I smiled. ‘He may have other ideas.’

‘The prophecy has spoken, Lord Uhtred,’ he said solemnly.

I was momentarily taken aback. ‘The prophecy?’

‘There’s a sorceress,’ he said, ‘and she sees the future.’

‘Ælfadell?’ I asked. ‘You saw her?’

‘Beortsig did,’ he said, looking at his son who, hearing Ælfadell’s name, made the sign of the cross.

‘What did she say?’ I asked the sullen Beortsig.

‘Nothing good,’ he said curtly, and would say no more.

I climbed into my saddle. I glanced around the yard for any evidence of Sihtric, but he was still concealed and so I left him there and we rode home. Finan was puzzled by Sihtric’s behaviour. ‘He must have been drunk beyond drunkenness,’ he said in wonder. I answered nothing. In many ways what Sihtric had said was right, Ælfwold had died because of my carelessness, but that did not give Sihtric the right to accuse me in open hall. ‘He’s always been a good man,’ Finan went on, still puzzled, ‘but lately he’s been surly. I don’t understand it.’

‘He’s becoming like his father,’ I said.

‘Kjartan the Cruel?’

‘I should never have saved Sihtric’s life.’

Finan nodded. ‘You want me to arrange his death?’

‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘only one man kills him, and that’s me. You understand? He’s mine, and until I rip his guts open I never want to hear his name again.’

Once home I expelled Ealhswith, Sihtric’s wife, and her two sons from my hall. There were tears and pleas from her friends, but I was unmoved. She went.

And next day I rode to lay my trap for Sigurd.

There was a tremulousness to those days. All Britain waited to hear of Alfred’s death, in the certain knowledge that his passing would scatter the runesticks. A new pattern would foretell a new fortune for Britain, but what that fortune was, no one knew, unless the nightmare sorceress did have the answers. In Wessex they would want another strong king to protect them, in Mercia some would want the same, while other Mercians would want their own king back, while everywhere to the north, where the Danes held the land, they dreamed of conquering Wessex. Yet all that spring and summer Alfred lived and men waited and dreamed and the new crops grew and I took forty-six men east and north to where Haesten had found his lair.

I would have liked three hundred men. I had been told many years before that one day I would lead armies across Britain, but to have an army a man must have land and the land I held was only large enough to keep a single crew of men fed and armed. I collected food-rents and I took customs dues from the merchants who used the Roman road that passed Æthelflaed’s estate, but that was scarcely a sufficient income and I could only lead forty-six men to Ceaster.

That was a bleak place. To the west were the Welsh, while to the east and north were Danish lords who recognised no man as king unless it were themselves. The Romans had built a fort at Ceaster, and it was in the remnants of that stronghold that Haesten had taken refuge. There had been a time when Haesten’s name struck fear into every Saxon, but he was a shadow now, reduced to fewer than two hundred men, and even they were of dubious loyalty. He had begun the winter with over three hundred followers, but men expect their lord to provide more than food and ale. They want silver, they want gold, they want slaves, and so Haesten’s men had trickled away in search of other lords. They went to Sigurd or to Cnut, to the men who were gold-givers.

Ceaster lay on the wild edge of Mercia and I found Æthelred’s troops some three miles to the south of Haesten’s fort. There were just over one hundred and fifty men whose job was to watch Haesten and keep him weak by harassing his foragers. They were commanded by a youngster called Merewalh, who seemed pleased by my arrival. ‘Have you come to kill the sorry bastard, lord?’ he asked me.

‘Only to look at him,’ I said.

In truth I was there to be looked at, though I dared not tell anyone my whole purpose. I wanted the Danes to know I was at Ceaster, and so I paraded my men south of the old Roman fort and flaunted my wolf’s head banner. I rode in my best mail, polished to a high shine by my servant Oswi, and I went close enough to the old walls for one of Haesten’s men to try his luck with a hunting arrow. I saw the feather flickering in the air and watched as the small shaft thumped into the turf a few paces from my horse’s hooves.

‘He can’t defend all those walls,’ Merewalh said wistfully.

He was right. The Roman fort at Ceaster was a vast place, almost a town in itself, and Haesten’s few men could never garrison the whole stretch of its decrepit ramparts. Merewalh and I might have combined our forces and attacked at night and maybe we would have found an undefended stretch of wall and then fought a bitter battle in the streets, but our numbers were too equal with Haesten’s to risk such an assault. We would have lost men in defeating an enemy who was already defeated, and so I contented myself with letting Haesten know I had come to taunt him. He had to hate me. Just a year before he had been the greatest power among all the Northmen, now he was cowering like a beaten fox in his den and I had reduced him to that plight. But he was a cunning fox and I knew he would be thinking how he might regain his power.

The old fort was built inside a great curve of the River Dee. Immediately outside its southern walls were the ruins of an immense stone building that had once been an arena where, so Merewalh’s priest told me, Christians had been fed to wild beasts. Some things are just too good to be true and so I was not sure I believed him. The remnants of the arena would have made a splendid stronghold for a force as small as Haesten’s, but instead he had chosen to concentrate his men at the northern end of the fort where the river lay closest to the walls. He had two small ships there, nothing more than old trading boats, which, because they were obviously leaky, were half pulled onto the bank. If he were attacked and cut off from the bridge then those ships were his escape across the Dee and into the wild lands beyond.

Merewalh was puzzled by my behaviour. ‘Are you trying to tempt him into a fight?’ he asked me the third day that I rode close to the old ramparts.

‘He won’t want a fight,’ I said, ‘but I want him to come out and meet us. And he will, he won’t be able to resist.’ I had paused on the Roman road that ran straight as a spear shaft to the double-arched gate that led into the fort. That gate was now blocked with vast baulks of timber. ‘You know I saved his life once?’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘There are times,’ I said, ‘when I think I’m a fool. I should have killed him the first time I saw him.’

‘Kill him now, lord,’ Merewalh suggested, because Haesten had just appeared from the fort’s western gate and now came slowly towards us. He had three men with him, all mounted. They paused at the fort’s south-western corner, between the walls and the ruined arena, then Haesten held out both hands to show he only wanted to talk. I turned my horse and spurred towards him, but took care to stop well out of bowshot of the ramparts. I took only Merewalh with me, leaving the rest of our troops to watch from a distance.

Haesten came grinning as though this meeting was a rare delight. He had not changed much, except he now had a beard that was grey, though his thick hair was still fair. His face was misleadingly open, full of charm, with amused bright eyes. He wore a dozen arm rings and, though the spring day was warm, a cloak of sealskin. Haesten always liked to look prosperous. Men will not follow a poor lord, let alone an ungenerous one, and so long as he had hopes of recovering his wealth he had to appear confident. He also appeared overjoyed to meet me. ‘Lord Uhtred!’ he exclaimed.

‘Jarl Haesten,’ I said, making the title as sour as I could, ‘weren’t you supposed to be King of Wessex by now?’

‘The pleasure of that throne is delayed,’ he said, ‘but for now let me welcome you to my present kingdom.’

I laughed at that, as he had meant me to. ‘Your kingdom?’

He swept an arm around the bleak low valley of the Dee. ‘No other man calls himself king here, so why not me?’

‘This is Lord Æthelred’s land,’ I said.

‘And Lord Æthelred is so generous with his possessions,’ Haesten said, ‘even, I hear, with his wife’s favours.’

Merewalh stirred beside me and I held up a cautionary hand. ‘The Jarl Haesten jests,’ I said.

‘Of course I jest,’ Haesten said, not smiling.

‘This is Merewalh,’ I said, introducing my one companion, ‘and he serves the Lord Æthelred. He might find favour with my cousin by killing you.’

‘He’d gain a great deal more favour by killing you,’ Haesten said shrewdly.

‘True,’ I allowed, and looked at Merewalh. ‘You want to kill me?’

‘Lord!’ he said, shocked.

‘My Lord Æthelred,’ I said to Haesten, ‘wishes you to leave his land. He has enough dung without you.’

‘Lord Æthelred,’ Haesten said, ‘is most welcome to come and drive me away.’

This was all as meaningless as it was expected. Haesten had not left the fort to listen to a string of threats, but because he wanted to know what my presence meant. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘the Lord Æthelred has sent me to drive you away?’

‘And when did you last do his bidding?’ Haesten asked.

‘Perhaps his wife wants you driven away,’ I said.

‘She’d rather I were dead, I think.’

‘Also true,’ I said.

Haesten smiled. ‘You came, Lord Uhtred, with one crew of men. We fear you, of course, because who doesn’t fear Uhtred of Bebbanburg?’ He bowed in his saddle as he uttered that piece of flattery. ‘But one crew of men is not sufficient to give the Lady Æthelflaed her wish.’ He waited for my response, but I said nothing. ‘Shall I tell you what mystifies me?’ he asked.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘For years now, Lord Uhtred, you have done Alfred’s work. You have killed his enemies, led his armies, made his kingdom safe, yet in return for all that service you have only one crew of warriors. Other men have land, they have great halls, they have treasure piled in strongrooms, their women’s necks are ringed with gold and they can lead hundreds of oath-men into battle, yet the man who made them safe goes unrewarded. Why do you stay loyal to such an ungenerous lord?’

‘I saved your life,’ I said, ‘and you are mystified by ingratitude?’

He laughed delightedly at that. ‘He starves you because he fears you. Have they made a Christian of you yet?’

‘No.’

‘Then join me. You and I, Lord Uhtred. We’ll tip Æthelred out of his hall and divide Mercia between us.’

‘I’ll offer you land in Mercia,’ I said.

He smiled. ‘An estate two paces long and one pace wide?’ he asked.

‘And all of two paces deep,’ I said.

‘I am a hard man to kill,’ he said. ‘The gods apparently love me, as they love you. I hear Sigurd has cursed you since Yule.’

‘What else do you hear?’

‘That the sun rises and sets.’

‘Watch it well,’ I said, ‘because you may not see many more such risings and settings.’ I suddenly kicked my horse hard forward, forcing Haesten’s stallion to back away. ‘Listen,’ I said, making my voice harsh, ‘you have two weeks to leave this place. Do you understand me, you ungrateful dog-turd? If you’re still here in fourteen days I’ll do to you what I did to your men at Beamfleot.’ I looked at his two companions, then back to Haesten. ‘Two weeks,’ I said, ‘and then the West Saxon troops come and I’ll turn your skull into a drinking pot.’

I lied of course, at least about the West Saxon troops coming, but Haesten knew it had been those troops who gave me the numbers to gain the victory at Beamfleot and so the lie was believable. He began to say something, but I turned and spurred away, beckoning Merewalh to follow me. ‘I’m leaving you Finan and twenty men,’ I told the Mercian when we were well out of Haesten’s earshot, ‘and before the two weeks are up you must expect an attack.’

‘From Haesten?’ Merewalh asked, sounding dubious.

‘No, from Sigurd. He’ll bring at least three hundred men. Haesten needs help, and he’s going to look for favour with Sigurd by sending a message that I’m here, and Sigurd will come because he wants me dead.’ Of course I could not be certain that any of that would happen, but I did not think Sigurd could resist the bait I was dangling. ‘When he comes,’ I went on, ‘you’re going to retreat. Go into the woods, keep ahead of him, and trust Finan. Let Sigurd waste his men on empty land. Don’t even try to fight him, just stay ahead of him.’

Merewalh did not argue. Instead, after a few moments’ thought, he looked at me quizzically. ‘Lord,’ he asked, ‘why hasn’t Alfred rewarded you?’

‘Because he doesn’t trust me,’ I said, and my honesty shocked Merewalh, who stared at me wide-eyed, ‘and if you have any loyalty to your lord,’ I went on, ‘you will tell him that Haesten offered me an alliance.’

‘And I shall tell him you refused it.’

‘You can tell him I was tempted,’ I said, shocking him again. I spurred on.

Sigurd and Eohric had laid an elaborate trap for me, one that had very nearly worked, and now I would lay a trap for Sigurd. I could not hope to kill him, not yet, but I wanted him to regret his attempt to kill me. But first I wanted to discover the future. It was time to go north.

I gave Cerdic my good mail, my helmet, my cloak and my horse. Cerdic was not as tall as I was, but he was big enough, and, dressed in my finery and with the cheek-plates of my helmet hiding his face, he would resemble me. I gave him my shield, painted with the wolf’s head, and told him to show himself every day. ‘Don’t go too close to his walls,’ I said, ‘just let him think I’m watching him.’

I left my wolf’s head banner with Finan and next day, with twenty-six men, I rode east.

We rode before dawn so that none of Haesten’s scouts would see us depart, and we rode into the rising sun. Once there was light in the sky we kept to wooded places, but always going east. Ludda was still with us. He was a trickster, a rogue, and I liked him. Best of all he had an extraordinary knowledge of Britain. ‘I’m always moving, lord,’ he explained to me, ‘that’s why I know my way.’

‘Always moving?’

‘If you sell a man two rusted iron nails for a lump of silver, then you don’t want to be in arm’s reach of him next morning, lord, do you? You move on, lord.’

I laughed. Ludda was our guide and he led us east on a Roman road until we saw a settlement where smoke rose into the sky and then we made a wide loop southwards to avoid being seen. There was no road beyond the settlement, only cattle paths that led up into the hills.

‘Where’s he taking us?’ Osferth asked me.

‘Buchestanes,’ I said.

‘What’s there?’

‘The land belongs to Jarl Cnut,’ I said, ‘and you won’t like what’s there so I’m not going to tell you.’ I would rather have had Finan for company, but I trusted the Irishman to keep Cerdic and Merewalh out of trouble. I liked Osferth well enough, but there were times when his caution was a hindrance rather than an asset. If I had left Osferth at Ceaster he would have retreated from Sigurd’s approach too hastily. He would have kept Merewalh far from trouble by withdrawing deep into the border forests between Mercia and Wales, and Sigurd might well have abandoned the hunt. I needed Sigurd to be taunted and tempted, and I trusted Finan to do that well.

It began to rain. Not a gentle summer rain, but a torrential downpour that was carried on a sharp east wind. It made our journey slow, miserable and safer. Safer because few men wanted to be out in such weather. When we did meet strangers I claimed to be a lord of Cumbraland travelling to pay my respects to the Jarl Sigurd. Cumbraland was a wild place where little lords squabbled. I had spent time there once and knew enough to answer any questions, but no one we met cared enough to ask them.

So we climbed into the hills and after three days came to Buchestanes. It lay in a hollow of the hills and was a town of some size built about a cluster of Roman buildings that retained their stone walls, though their roofs had long been replaced by thatch. There was no defensive palisade, but we were met at the town’s edge by three men in mail who came from a hovel to confront us. ‘You must pay to enter the town,’ one said.

‘Who are you?’ a second asked.

‘Kjartan,’ I said. That was the name I was using in Buchestanes, the name of Sihtric’s evil father, a name from my past.

‘Where are you from?’ the man asked. He carried a long spear with a rusted head.

‘Cumbraland,’ I said.

They all sneered at that. ‘From Cumbraland, eh?’ the first man said, ‘well you can’t pay in sheep dung here.’ He laughed, amused at his own joke.

‘Who do you serve?’ I asked him.

‘The Jarl Cnut Ranulfson,’ the second man answered, ‘and even in Cumbraland you must have heard of him.’

‘He’s famous,’ I said, pretending to be awed, then paid them with the silver shards of a chopped-up arm ring. I haggled with them first, but not too strongly because I wanted to visit this town without arousing suspicion, and so I paid silver I could scarce afford and we were allowed into the muddy streets. We found shelter in a spacious farm on the eastern side. The owner was a widow who had long abandoned raising sheep and instead made a livelihood from travellers seeking the hot springs that were reputed to have healing powers, though now, she told us, they were guarded by monks who demanded silver before anyone could enter the old Roman bathhouse. ‘Monks?’ I asked her, ‘I thought this was Cnut Ranulfson’s land?’

‘Why would he care?’ she demanded. ‘So long as he gets his silver he doesn’t mind what god they worship.’ She was a Saxon, as were most of the folk in the small town, but she spoke of Cnut with evident respect. No wonder. He was rich, he was dangerous and he was said to be the finest sword fighter in all Britain. His sword was said to be the longest and most lethal blade in the land, which gave him the name Cnut Longsword, but Cnut was also a fervent ally of Sigurd. If Cnut Ranulfson knew that I was on his land then Buchestanes would be swarming with Danes seeking my life. ‘So are you here for the hot springs?’ the widow asked me.

‘I seek the sorceress,’ I said.

She made the sign of the cross. ‘God preserve us,’ she said.

‘And to see her,’ I asked, ‘what do I do?’

‘Pay the monks, of course.’

Christians are so strange. They claim the pagan gods have no power and that the old magic is as fraudulent as Ludda’s bags of iron, yet when they are ill, or when their harvest fails, or when they want children, they will go to the galdricge, the sorceress, and every district has one. A priest will preach against such women, declaring them heretic and evil, yet a day later he will pay silver to a galdricge to hear his future or have the warts removed from his face. The monks of Buchestanes were no different. They guarded the Roman bathhouse, they chanted in their chapel and they took silver and gold to arrange a meeting with the aglæcwif. An aglæcwif is a she-monster, and that is how I thought of Ælfadell. I feared her and I wanted to hear her, and so I sent Ludda and Rypere to make the arrangements, and they returned saying the enchantress demanded gold. Not silver, gold.

I had brought money on this journey, almost all the money I had left in the world. I had been forced to take the gold chains from Sigunn, and I used two of those to pay the monks, swearing that one day I would return to retrieve the precious links. Then, at dusk on our second day in Buchestanes, I walked south and west to a hill that loomed above the town and was dominated by one of the old people’s graves, a green mound on a drenched hill. Those graves have vengeful ghosts and, as I followed the path into a wood of ash, beech and elm, I felt a chill. I had been instructed to go alone and told that if I disobeyed then the sorceress would not appear to me, but now I fervently wished I had a companion to watch my back. I stopped, hearing nothing except the sigh of wind in the leaves and the drip of water and the rush of a nearby stream. The widow had told me that some men were forced to wait days to consult Ælfadell, and some, she said, paid their silver or gold, came to the wood, and found nothing. ‘She can vanish into air,’ the widow told me, making the sign of the cross. Once, she said, Cnut himself had come and Ælfadell had refused to appear.

‘And Jarl Sigurd?’ I had asked her. ‘He came too?’

‘He came last year,’ she said, ‘and he was generous. A Saxon lord was with him.’

‘Who?’

‘How would I know? They didn’t rest their bones in my house. They stayed with the monks.’

‘Tell me what you remember,’ I asked her.

‘He was young,’ she said, ‘he had long hair like you, but he was still a Saxon.’ Most Saxons cut their hair, while the Danes prefer to let it grow long. ‘The monks called him the Saxon, lord,’ the widow went on, ‘but who he was? I don’t know.’

‘And he was a lord?’

‘He dressed like one, lord.’

I was dressed in mail and leather. I heard nothing dangerous in the wood and so went onward, stooping beneath wet leaves until I saw that the path ended at a limestone crag that was slashed by a great crevice. Water dripped down the cliff face, and the stream gushed from the crevice’s base, churning itself white about fallen rocks before sluicing into the woods. I looked about and saw no one, heard no one. It seemed to me that no birds sang, though that was surely my apprehension. The stream’s noise was loud. I could see footprints in the shingle and stone that edged the stream, though none looked fresh, and so I took a deep breath, clambered over the fallen stones and stepped into the cave’s slit-like mouth that was edged by ferns.

I remember the fear of that cave, a greater fear than I had felt at Cynuit when Ubba’s men had made the shield wall and come to kill us. I touched Thor’s hammer that hung at my neck and I said a prayer to Hoder, the son of Odin and blind god of the night, and then I groped my way forward, ducking under a rock arch beyond which the grey evening light faded fast. I let my eyes grow used to the gloom and moved on, trying to stay above the stream that scoured through the bank of pebbles and sand that grated beneath my boots. I inched my way forward through a narrow, low passage. It grew colder. I wore a helmet and it touched rock more than once. I gripped the hammer that hung about my neck. This cave was surely one of the entrances to the netherworld, to where Yggdrasil has its roots and the three fates decide our destiny. It was a place for dwarves and elves, for the shadow creatures who haunt our lives and mock our hopes. I was frightened.

I slipped on sand and blundered forward and sensed that the passage had ended and that I was now in a great echoing space. I saw a glimmer of light and wondered if my eyes played tricks. I touched the hammer again, and then put my hand on the hilt of Serpent-Breath. I was standing still, hearing the drip of water and the rush of the stream, and listening for the sound of a person. I was gripping my sword’s hilt now, praying to blind Hoder to guide me in the blind darkness.

And then there was light.

Sudden light. It was only a bundle of rushlights, but they had been concealed behind screens that were abruptly lifted and their small, smoky flames seemed dazzlingly bright in the utter darkness.

The rushlights were standing on a rock that had a smooth surface like a table. A knife, a cup and a bowl lay beside the lights, which lit a chamber as high as any hall. The cave’s roof hung with pale stone that looked as if it had been frozen in mid-flow. Liquid stone, touched with blue and grey, and all that I saw in an instant, then I stared at the creature who watched me from behind the rock table. She was a dark cloak in the darkness, a shape in the shadows, a bent thing, the aglæcwif, but as my eyes became used to the light I saw that she was a tiny thing, frail as a bird, old as time and with a face so dark and deep-lined that it looked like leather. Her black woollen cloak was filthy and its hood half covered her hair that was grey-streaked black. She was ugliness in human guise, the galdricge, the aglæcwif, Ælfadell.

I did not move and she did not speak. She just gazed at me, unblinkingly, and I felt the fear crawl in me, and then she beckoned to me with one claw-like hand and touched the empty bowl. ‘Fill it,’ she said. Her voice was like wind on gravel.

‘Fill it?’

‘Gold,’ she said, ‘or silver. But fill it.’

‘You want more?’ I asked angrily.

‘You want everything, Kjartan of Cumbraland,’ she said, and she had paused for the space of an eye-blink before saying that name, as if she suspected it was false, ‘so yes. I want more.’

I almost refused, but I confess I was frightened of her power, and so I took all the silver from my pouch, fifteen coins, and put them in the wooden bowl. She smirked as the coins clinked. ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.

‘Everything.’

‘There will be a harvest,’ she said dismissively, ‘and then winter, and after winter the time of sowing, and then another harvest and then another winter until time ends, and men will be born and men will die, and that is everything.’

‘Then tell me what I want to know,’ I said.

She hesitated, then gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Put your hand on the rock,’ she said, but when I put my left hand flat on the cold stone she shook her head. ‘Your sword hand,’ she said and I obediently laid my right hand there instead. ‘Turn it over,’ she snarled, and I turned the hand palm upwards. She picked up the knife, watching my eyes. She was half smiling, daring me to withdraw my hand, and when I did not move she suddenly scored the knife across my palm. She scored it once from the ball of my thumb to the base of my small finger, then did it again, crosswise, and I watched the fresh blood well from the two cuts and I remembered the crosswise scar on Sigurd’s hand. ‘Now,’ she said, putting the knife down, ‘slap the stone hard.’ She pointed with a finger to the smooth centre of the stone. ‘Slap it there.’