Читать книгу Sword of Kings - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 9

Gydene was missing.

She was not the first of my ships to vanish. The savage sea is vast and ships are small and Gydene, which simply meant ‘goddess’, was smaller than most. She had been built at Grimesbi on the Humbre and had been named Haligwæter. She had fished for a year before I bought her and, because I wanted no ship named Holy Water in my fleet, I paid a virgin one shilling to piss in her bilge, renamed her Gydene, and gave her to the fisherfolk of Bebbanburg. They cast their nets far offshore and, when Gydene did not return on a day when the wind was brisk, the sky grey, and the waves were crashing white and high on the rocks of the Farnea Islands, we assumed she had been overwhelmed and had given Bebbanburg’s small village six widows and almost three times as many orphans. Maybe I should have left her name alone, all seamen know that you risk fate by changing a ship’s name, though they know equally well that a virgin’s piss averts that fate. Yet the gods can be as cruel as the sea.

Then Egil Skallagrimmrson came from his land that I had granted to him, land that formed the border of my territory and Constantin of Scotland’s realm, and Egil came by sea as he always did and there was a corpse in the belly of Banamaðr, his serpent-ship. ‘Washed ashore in the Tuede,’ he told me, ‘he’s yours, isn’t he?’

‘The Tuede?’ I asked.

‘Southern shore. Found him on a mudbank. The gulls found him first.’

‘I can see.’

‘He was one of yours, wasn’t he?’

‘He was,’ I said. The dead man’s name was Haggar Bentson, a fisherman, helmsman of the Gydene, a big man, too fond of ale, scarred from too many brawls, a bully, a wife-beater, and a good sailor.

‘Wasn’t drowned, was he?’ Egil remarked.

‘No.’

‘And the gulls didn’t kill him,’ Egil sounded amused.

‘No,’ I said, ‘the gulls didn’t kill him.’ Instead Haggar had been hacked to death. His corpse was naked and fish-white, except for the hands and what was left of his face. Great wounds had been slashed across his belly, chest and thighs, the savage cuts washed clean by the sea.

Egil touched a boot against a gaping wound that had riven Haggar’s chest from the shoulder to the breastbone. ‘I’d say that was the axe blow that killed him,’ he said, ‘but someone cut off his balls first.’

‘I noticed that.’

Egil stooped to the corpse and forced the lower jaw down. Egil Skallagrimmrson was a strong man, but it still took an effort to open Haggar’s mouth. The bone made a cracking sound and Egil straightened. ‘Took his teeth too,’ he said.

‘And his eyes.’

‘That might have been the gulls. Partial to an eyeball, they are.’

‘But they left his tongue,’ I said. ‘Poor bastard.’

‘Miserable way to die,’ Egil agreed, then turned to look at the harbour entrance. ‘Only two reasons I can think of to torture a man before you kill him.’

‘Two?’

‘To enjoy themselves? Maybe he insulted them,’ he suggested. ‘The other is to make him talk. Why else leave his tongue?’

‘Them?’ I asked. ‘The Scots?’

Egil looked back to the mangled corpse. ‘He must have annoyed someone, but the Scots have been quiet lately. Doesn’t seem like them.’ He shrugged. ‘Could be something personal. Another fisherman he angered?’

‘No other bodies?’ I asked. There had been six men and two boys in the Gydene’s crew. ‘No wreckage?’

‘Just this poor bastard so far. But the others could be out there, still floating.’

There was little more to say or do. If the Scots had not captured Gydene then I assumed it was either a Norse raider or else a Frisian ship using the early summer weather to enrich herself with the Gydene’s catch of herring, cod, and haddock. Whoever it was, the Gydene was gone, and I suspected her surviving crew had been put on their captor’s rowing benches and that suspicion turned to near certainty when, two days after Egil brought me the corpse, the Gydene herself washed ashore north of Lindisfarena. She was a dismasted hulk, barely afloat as the waves heaved her onto the sands. No more bodies appeared, just the wreck, which we left on the sands, certain that the storms of autumn would break her up.

A week after the Gydene lurched brokenly ashore another fishing boat vanished, and this one on a windless day as calm as any the gods ever made. The lost ship had been called the Swealwe and, like Haggar, her master had liked to cast nets far out to sea, and the first I knew of the Swallow’s disappearance was when three widows came to Bebbanburg, led by their gap-toothed village priest who was named Father Gadd. He bobbed his head. ‘There was …’ he began.

‘Was what?’ I asked, resisting the urge to imitate the hissing noise the priest made because of his missing teeth.

Father Gadd was nervous, and no wonder. I had heard that he preached sermons that lamented that his village’s overlord was a pagan, but his courage had fled now that he was face to face with that pagan.

‘Bolgar Haruldson, lord. He’s the—’

‘I know who Bolgar is,’ I interrupted. He was another fisherman.

‘He saw two ships on the horizon, lord. On the day the Swealwe vanished.’

‘There are many ships,’ I said, ‘trading ships. It would be strange if he didn’t see ships.’

‘Bolgar says they headed north, then south.’

The nervous fool was not making much sense, but in the end I understood what he was trying to say. The Swealwe had rowed out to sea, and Bolgar, an experienced man, saw where she vanished beyond the horizon. He then saw the masthead of the two ships go towards the Swealwe, pause for some time, then turn back. The Swealwe had been beneath the horizon and the only visible sign of her meeting with the mysterious ships was their masts going north, pausing, then going south, and that did not sound like the movement of any trading ship. ‘You should have brought Bolgar to me,’ I said, then gave the three widows silver and the priest two pennies for bringing me the news.

‘What news?’ Finan asked me that evening.

We were sitting on the bench outside Bebbanburg’s hall, staring across the eastern ramparts to the moon’s wrinkling reflection on the wide sea. From inside the hall came the sounds of men singing, of men laughing. They were my warriors, all but for the score who watched from our high walls. A small east wind brought the smell of the sea. It was a quiet night and Bebbanburg’s lands had been peaceful ever since we had crossed the hills and defeated Sköll in his high fortress a year before. After that grisly fight we had thought the Norsemen were beaten and that the western part of Northumbria was cowed, but travellers brought news across the high passes that still the Northmen came, their dragon-boats landing on our western coasts, their warriors finding land, but no Norseman called himself king as Sköll had done, and none crossed the hills to disturb Bebbanburg’s pastures, and so there was peace of a sort. Constantin of Alba, which some men call Scotland, was at war with the Norse of Strath Clota, led by a king called Owain, and Owain left us alone and Constantin wanted peace with us until he could defeat Owain’s Norsemen. It was what my father had called ‘a Scottish peace’, meaning that there were constant and savage cattle raids, but there are always cattle raids, and we always retaliated by striking into the Scottish valleys to bring back livestock. We stole just as many as they stole, and it would have been much simpler to have had no raids, but in times of peace young men must be taught the ways of war.

‘The news,’ I told Finan, ‘is that there are raiders out there,’ I nodded at the sea, ‘and they’ve plucked two of our ships.’

‘There are always raiders.’

‘I don’t like these,’ I said.

Finan, my closest friend, an Irishman who fought with the passion of his race and the skill of the gods, laughed. ‘Got a stench in your nostril?’

I nodded. There are times when knowledge comes from nothing, from a feeling, from a scent that cannot be smelled, from a fear that has no cause. The gods protect us and they send that sudden prickling of the nerves, the certainty that an innocent landscape has hidden killers. ‘Why would they torture Haggar?’ I asked.

‘Because he was a sour bastard, of course.’

‘He was,’ I said, ‘but it feels worse than that.’

‘So what will you do?’

‘Go hunting, of course.’

Finan laughed. ‘Are you bored?’ he asked, but I said nothing, which made him laugh again. ‘You’re bored,’ he accused me, ‘and just want an excuse to play with Spearhafoc.’

And that was true. I wanted to take Spearhafoc to sea, and so I would go hunting.

Spearhafoc was named for the sparrowhawks that nested in Bebbanburg’s sparse woodlands and, like those sparrowhawks, she was a huntress. She was long with a low freeboard amidships and a defiant prow that held a carving of a sparrowhawk’s head. Her benches held forty rowers. She had been built by a pair of Frisian brothers who had fled their country and started a shipyard on the banks of the Humbre where they had made Spearhafoc from good Mercian oak and ash. They had formed her hull by nailing eleven long planks on either flank of her frame, then stepped a mast of supple Northumbrian pinewood, braced with lines and supporting a yard from which her sail hung proud. Proud because the sail showed my symbol, the symbol of Bebbanburg, the head of a snarling wolf. The wolf and the sparrowhawk, both hunters and both savage. Even Egil Skallagrimmrson who, like most Norsemen, despised Saxon ships and Saxon sailors, grudgingly approved of Spearhafoc. ‘Though of course,’ he had said to me, ‘she’s not really Saxon, is she? She’s Frisian.’

Saxon or not, Spearhafoc slid out through Bebbanburg’s narrow harbour channel in a hazed summer dawn. It had been a week since I had heard the news of Swealwe, a week in which my fisherfolk never went far from land. Up and down the coast, on all Bebbanburg’s harbours, there was fear, and so Spearhafoc went to seek vengeance. The tide was flooding, there was no wind, and my oarsmen stroked hard and well, surging the ship against the current to leave a widening wake. The only noises were the creak of the oars as they pulled against the tholes, the ripple of water along the hull, the slap of feeble waves on the beach, and the forlorn cries of gulls over Bebbanburg’s great fortress.

Forty men hauled on the long oars, another twenty crouched either between the benches or on the bow’s platform. All wore mail and all had their weapons, though the rowers’ spears, axes and swords were piled amidships with the heaps of shields. Finan and I stood on the steersman’s brief deck. ‘There might be wind later?’ Finan suggested.

‘Or might not,’ I grunted.

Finan was never comfortable at sea and never understood my love of ships, and he only accompanied me that day because there was the prospect of a fight. ‘Though whoever killed Haggar is probably long gone,’ he grumbled as we left the harbour channel.

‘Probably,’ I agreed.

‘So we’re wasting our time then.’

‘Most likely,’ I said. Spearhafoc was lifting her prow to the long, sullen swells, making Finan grip the sternpost to keep his balance. ‘Sit,’ I told him, ‘and drink some ale.’

We rowed into the rising sun, and as the day warmed a small wind sprang from the west, enough of a breeze to let my crew haul the yard to the mast’s top and let loose the wolf’s head sail. The oarsmen rested gratefully as Spearhafoc rippled the slow heaving sea. The land was lost in the haze behind us. There had been a pair of small fishing craft beside the Farnea Islands, but once we were further out to sea we saw no masts or hulls and seemed to be alone in a wide world. For the most part I could let the steering-oar trail in the water as the ship took us slowly eastwards, the wind barely sufficient to fill the heavy sail. Most of my men slept as the sun climbed higher.

Dream time. This, I thought was how Ginnungagap must have been, that void between the furnace of heaven and the ice beneath, the void in which the world was made. We sailed in a blue-grey emptiness in which my thoughts wandered slow as the ship. Finan was sleeping. Every now and then the sail would sag as the wind dropped, then belly out again with a dull thud as the small breeze returned. The only real evidence that we were moving was the gentle ripple of Spearhafoc’s wake.

And in the void I thought of kings and of death, because Edward still lived. Edward, who styled himself Anglorum Saxonum Rex, King of the Angles and the Saxons. He was King of Wessex and of Mercia and of East Anglia, and he still lived. He had been ill, he had recovered, he had fallen sick again, then rumour said he was dying, yet still Edward lived. And I had taken an oath to kill two men when Edward died. I had made that promise, and I had no idea how I was to keep it.

Because to keep it I would have to leave Northumbria and go deep into Wessex. And in Wessex I was Uhtred the Pagan, Uhtred the Godless, Uhtred the Treacherous, Uhtred Ealdordeofol, which means Chief of the Devils, and, most commonly, I was called Uhtredærwe, which simply means Uhtred the Wicked. In Wessex I had powerful enemies and few friends. Which gave me three choices. I could invade with a small army, which would inevitably be beaten, I could go with a few men and risk discovery, or I could break the oath. The first two choices would lead to my death, the third would lead to the shame of a man who had failed to keep his word, the shame of being an oathbreaker.

Eadith, my wife, had no doubts about what I should do. ‘Break the oath,’ she had told me tartly. We had been lying in our chamber behind Bebbanburg’s great hall and I was gazing into the shadowed rafters, blackened by smoke and by night, and I had said nothing. ‘Let them kill each other,’ she had urged me. ‘It’s a quarrel for the southerners, not us. We’re safe here.’ And she was right, we were safe in Bebbanburg, but still her demand had angered me. The gods mark our promises, and to break an oath is to risk their wrath. ‘You would die for a stupid oath?’ Eadith had been angry too. ‘Is that what you want?’ I wanted to live, but I wanted to live without the stain of dishonour that marked an oathbreaker.

Spearhafoc took my mind from the quandary by quickening to a freshening wind and I grasped the steering-oar again and felt the quiver of the water coming through the long ash shaft. At least this choice was simple. Strangers had slaughtered my men, and we sailed to seek revenge across a wind-rippled sea that reflected a myriad flashes of sunlight. ‘Are we home yet?’ Finan asked.

‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘Dozing,’ Finan grunted, then heaved himself upright and stared around. ‘There’s a ship out there.’

‘Where?’

‘There,’ he pointed north. Finan had the sharpest eyesight of any man I’ve ever known. He might be getting older, like me, yet his sight was as keen as ever. ‘Just a mast,’ he said, ‘no sail.’

I stared into the haze, seeing nothing. Then I thought I saw a flicker against the pale sky, a line as tremulous as a charcoal scratch. A mast? I lost it, looked, found it again, and turned the ship northwards. The sail protested until we hauled in the steerboard sheet and Spearhafoc leaned again to the breeze and the water seethed louder down her flanks. My men stirred, woken by Spearhafoc’s sudden liveliness, and turned to look at the far ship.

‘No sail on her,’ Finan said.

‘She’s going into the wind,’ I said, ‘so they’re rowing. Probably a trader.’ No sooner had I spoken than the tiny scratch mark on the hazed horizon disappeared, replaced by a newly dropped sail. I watched her, the blur of the big square sail much easier to distinguish than the mast. ‘She’s turning towards us,’ I said.

‘It’s Banamaðr,’ Finan said.

I laughed at that. ‘You’re guessing!’

‘No guess,’ Finan said, ‘she has an eagle on her sail, it’s Egil.’

‘You can see that!’

‘You can’t?’

Our two ships were sailing towards each other now, and within moments I could see a distinctive lime-washed upper strake that showed clearly against the lower hull’s darker planks. I could also see the big black outline of a spread-winged eagle on the sail and the eagle’s head on her high prow. Finan was right, it was Banamaðr, a name that meant ‘killer’. It was Egil’s ship.

As the Banamaðr drew closer I dropped my sail and let Spearhafoc wallow in the livening waves. It was a sign to Egil that he could come alongside, and I watched as his ship curved towards us. She was smaller than Spearhafoc, but just as sleek, a Frisian-built raider that was Egil’s joy because, like almost all Norsemen, he was happiest when he was at sea. I watched the sea break white at Banamaðr’s cutwater, she kept turning, the great yard dropped and men hauled the sail inboard, turned the long yard with its furled sail fore and aft, and then, sweet as any seaman could desire, she slewed alongside our steerboard flank. A man in Banamaðr’s bows threw a line, a second line sailed towards me from her stern, and Egil was shouting at his crew to drape sailcloth or cloaks over the pale upper strake so our timbers did not crash and grind together. He grinned at me. ‘Are you doing what I think you’re doing?’

‘Wasting my time,’ I called back.

‘Maybe not.’

‘And you?’

‘Looking for the bastards who took your ships, of course. Can I come aboard?’

‘Come!’

Egil waited to judge the waves, then leaped across. He was a Norseman, a pagan, a poet, a seaman, and a warrior. He was tall, like me, and wore his fair hair long and wild. He was clean-shaven with a chin as sharp as a dragon-boat’s prow, he had deep eyes, an axe-blade of a nose and a mouth that smiled often. Men followed him eagerly, women even more eagerly. I had only known him for a year, but in that year I had come to like and trust him. He was young enough to be my son and he had brought seventy Norse warriors who had sworn their allegiance to me in return for the land I had given them along the Tuede’s southern bank.

‘We should go south,’ Egil said briskly.

‘South?’ I asked.

Egil nodded at Finan, ‘Good morning, lord,’ he always called Finan ‘lord’ to their shared amusement. He looked back to me. ‘You’re not wasting your time. We met a Scottish trader sailing northwards, and he told us there were four ships down there.’ He nodded southwards. ‘Way out to sea,’ he said, ‘out of sight of land. Four Saxon ships, just waiting. One of them stopped him, they demanded three shillings duty, and when he couldn’t pay, they stole his whole cargo.’

‘They wanted to charge him duty!’

‘In your name.’

‘In my name,’ I said softly, angrily.

‘I was on my way back to tell you.’ Egil looked into Banamaðr where around forty men waited. ‘I don’t have enough men to take on four ships, but the two of us could do some damage?’

‘How many men in the ships?’ Finan had scrambled to his feet and was looking eager.

‘The one that stopped the Scotsman had forty, he said two of the others were about the same size, and the last one smaller.’

‘We could do some damage,’ I said vengefully.

Finan, while he listened to us, had been watching Egil’s crew. Three men were struggling to take the eagle’s head from the prow. They laid the heavy piece of wood on the brief foredeck, then helped the others who were unlacing the sail. ‘What are they doing?’ Finan asked.

Egil turned to Banamaðr. ‘If the scum see a ship with an eagle on the sail,’ he said, ‘they’ll know we’re a fighting ship. If they see my eagle they’ll know it’s me. So I’m turning the sail around.’ He grinned. ‘We’re a small ship, they’ll think we’re easy prey.’

I understood what he was suggesting. ‘So I’m to follow you?’

‘Under oars,’ he suggested. ‘If you’re under sail they’ll see you sooner. We’ll suck them in with Banamaðr as the bait, then you can help me finish them.’

‘Help?’ I repeated scornfully, which made him laugh.

‘But who are they?’ Finan asked.

That was the question that nagged at me as we rowed southwards. Egil had gone back to his ship and, with his sail showing a drab frontage, was plunging ahead of us. Despite his suggestion, the Spearhafoc was also under sail, but at least a half-mile behind Banamaðr. I did not want my men wearied by hard rowing if they were to fight, and so we had agreed that Egil would turn Banamaðr if he sighted the four ships. He would turn and pretend to flee towards the coast and so lead the enemy, we hoped, into our ambush. I would drop our sail when he turned, so that the enemy would not see the great wolf’s head, but would think us just another trading ship that would prove easy prey. We had taken the sparrowhawk’s head from the prow. The great carved symbols were there to placate the gods, to frighten enemies, and drive off evil spirits, but custom dictated that they could be removed in safe waters and so, instead of being nailed or scarfed into the prow, they were easily dismounted.

‘Four ships,’ Finan said flatly, ‘Saxons.’

‘And being clever,’ I said.

‘Clever? You call poking you with a sharp stick clever?’

‘They attack ships from Bebbanburg, but only harass the others. How long before King Constantin hears that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is confiscating Scottish cargoes?’

‘He’s probably heard already.’

‘So how long before the Scots decide to punish us?’ I asked. ‘Constantin might be fighting Owain of Strath Clota, but he still has ships he can send to our coast.’ I gazed at Banamaðr that was heeling gently to the west wind and leaving a white wake. For a small boat she was quick and lively. ‘Somebody,’ I went on, ‘wants to tangle us in a quarrel with the Scots.’

‘And not just the Scots,’ Finan said.

‘Not just the Scots,’ I agreed. Ships from Scotland, from East Anglia, from Frisia, and from all the Viking homelands sailed past our coast. Even ships from Wessex. And I had never charged duty on those cargoes. I reckoned it was none of my business if a Scotsman sailed past my coast with a ship filled with pelts or pottery. True, if a ship put into one of my harbours then I would charge a fee, but so did everyone else. But now a small fleet had come to my waters and was levying a duty in my name, and I suspected I knew where that fleet had come from. And if I was right, then the four ships had come from the south, from the lands of Edward, Anglorum Saxonum Rex.

Spearhafoc plunged her bows into a green sea to shatter a hard white foam along her decks. Banamaðr was pitching too, driven by a rising west wind, both of us sailing southwards to hunt down the ships that had killed my tenants, and if I was right about those ships, then I had a bloodfeud on my hands.

A bloodfeud is a war between two families, both sworn to destroy the other. My first had been against Kjartan the Cruel who had slaughtered the whole household of Ragnar, the Dane who had adopted me as a son. I had welcomed that feud, and ended it too by killing both Kjartan and his son, but this new bloodfeud was against a far more powerful enemy. An enemy who lived far to the south in Edward’s Wessex, where they could raise an army of household warriors. And to kill them I must go there, to where that army waited to kill me. ‘She’s turning!’ Finan interrupted my thoughts.

Banamaðr was indeed turning. I saw her sail come down, saw the late morning light reflected from oar-blades as they were thrust outboard. Saw the long oars dip and pull, and saw Banamaðr labouring westwards as if seeking the safety of a Northumbrian harbour.

So the bloodfeud, it seemed, had come to me.

I had liked Æthelhelm the Elder. He had been Wessex’s richest ealdorman, a lord of many estates, a genial and even a generous man, and yet he had died as my enemy and as my prisoner.

I had not killed him. I had taken him prisoner when he fought against me, then treated him with the honour that his rank deserved. But then he had caught a sweating sickness, and though we had bled him, though we had paid our Christian priests to pray for him, and though we had wrapped him in pelts and given him the herbs that women had said might cure him, he had died. His son, Æthelhelm the Younger, spread the lie that I had killed his father, and he swore to take revenge. He swore a bloodfeud against me.

Yet I had thought of Æthelhelm the Elder as a friend before his eldest daughter married King Edward of Wessex and gave the king a son. That son, Æthelhelm’s grandson, Ælfweard, became the ætheling. Crown Prince Ælfweard! He was a petulant and spoiled child who had grown to be a sour, sullen and selfish young man, cruel and vain. Yet Ælfweard was not Edward’s eldest son, that was Æthelstan, and Æthelstan was also my friend.

So why was Æthelstan not the ætheling? Because Æthelhelm spread the rumour, a false rumour, that Æthelstan was a bastard, that Edward had never married his mother. So Æthelstan was exiled to Mercia, where I had met him and where I came to admire the boy. He grew into a warrior, a man of justice, and the only fault I could find in him was his passionate adherence to his Christian god.

And now Edward was sick. Men knew he must die soon. And when he died there would be a struggle between the supporters of Æthelhelm the Younger, who wanted Ælfweard on the throne, and those who knew that Æthelstan would make the better king. Wessex and Mercia, joined in an uncertain union, would be torn apart by battle. And so Æthelstan had asked me to swear an oath. That on King Edward’s death I would kill Æthelhelm and so destroy his power over the nobles who must meet in the Witan to confirm the new king.

And that was why I would need go to Wessex, where my enemies were numerous.

Because I had sworn an oath.

And I had no doubt that Æthelhelm had sent the ships north to weaken me, to distract me, and, with any luck, to kill me.

The four ships appeared in the summer haze. They were wallowing in the summer sea, but as we appeared they hoisted their sails and turned to pursue us.

Banamaðr had dropped her sail so that, as she pretended to flee westwards, the four ships would not see the black eagle that now faced aft. And we, the moment we saw Banamaðr turn, also dropped our sail so that the enemy would not see the wolf’s head of Bebbanburg.

‘Now row!’ Finan called to the benches. ‘Row!’

The summer haze was thinning. I could see the distant sails bellying in the gusting wind and could see they were gaining on Egil, who was only using three oarsmen on each side. To show more oars was to betray that his ship was no merchant’s vessel, but a serpent-ship crammed with men. I wondered for a moment whether I should follow his example, then decided that the four distant ships were unlikely to fear a single warship. They outnumbered us, and I did not doubt that these men had been sent to kill me if they had the chance.

So I would give them the chance.

But would they take it? More urgently, they were gaining on Banamaðr, driven fast by the brisk wind, and I decided to reveal myself, shouting at my crew to hoist the big sail again. The sight of the wolf’s head might give the enemy pause, but surely they must reckon on winning the coming fight, even against Uhtredærwe.

The sail flapped as it rose, boomed in the wind, then was sheeted home, and Spearhafoc leaned into the sea as her speed increased. The oars were brought inboard and the oarsmen pulled on their mail coats and fetched their shields and weapons. ‘Rest while you can!’ I called to them.

The sea was white-flecked now, the crests of the waves being blown to spume. Spearhafoc was dipping her bow, drenching the deck, then rising, before plunging down into the next roller. The steering-oar was heavy in my hands, needing all my strength to push or pull as it quivered with speed. I was still sailing south to face the four ships, to challenge them, and Egil now did the same. Two ships against four.

‘You think those are Æthelhelm’s ships?’ Finan asked.

‘Who else?’

‘He won’t be on any of them,’ Finan grunted.

I laughed at that. ‘He’s safe home in Wiltunscir. He hired these bastards.’

The bastards were in a line now, spread across our path. Three of the ships looked to be about the size of Spearhafoc, while the fourth, which was furthest east, was smaller, no bigger than Banamaðr. That ship, seeing us race southwards, was lagging as if reluctant to join a fight. We were still far away, but it seemed to me that the smaller ship had very few crewmen.

Unlike the three larger ships, which kept coming towards us. ‘They’re well manned,’ Finan said calmly.

‘Egil’s Scotsman said there were about forty men in the ship that stopped him.’

‘I’d guess more.’

‘We’ll find out.’

‘And they have archers.’

‘They do?’

‘I can see them.’

‘We have shields,’ I said, ‘and archers like a steady ship, not a boat pitching like an unbroken colt.’

Roric, my servant, brought me my helmet. Not the proud helmet with the silver wolf crouching on its crest, but a serviceable helm that had belonged to my father and was always left on board Spearhafoc. The metal cheek-pieces had rusted and been replaced with boiled leather. I pulled the helmet over my head and Roric laced the cheek-pieces so that an enemy would see nothing but my eyes.

Three of the ships bore no symbols on their sails, though the craft furthest west, closest to the unseen Northumbrian coast, showed a coiled snake, which, like our wolf, was probably woven from wool. The huge slab of cloth was reinforced with rope that made a diamond pattern through which the black snake showed. I could see the water shattering white at her bow.

Egil had turned Banamaðr so, instead of feigning a clumsy flight west towards the harbours of the Northumbrian coast, he was now sailing south next to Spearhafoc. Like me he had hoisted his sail, his crew just sheeting it home as we came abreast of him. I cupped my hands and shouted across the churning water. ‘I’m aiming for the second one!’ I pointed to the ship nearest the snake-sailed vessel. Egil nodded to show he had heard. ‘But I’m going to attack the snake one!’ I pointed again. ‘You too!’

‘Me too!’ he called back. He was grinning, his fair hair streaming from beneath his helmet’s rim.

The enemy had spread into a line so that any two of their ships could close on one of ours. If that notion had worked they could board us from both sides at once and the sword-work would be brief, bitter, and bloody. I let them think that plan would succeed by heading slightly off the wind towards the second ship from the west and saw the other two larger ships slightly change their direction so that they were headed towards the place where they thought we would meet their line. They were still spread out, at least four or five ships’ lengths between each, but their line was shrinking. The smaller ship, slower than the others, lagged further behind.

Egil’s ship, slower than mine because she was shorter, had fallen behind, and I ordered the steerboard sheet to be loosened to slow Spearhafoc, then turned and waved to Egil, pointing to my steerboard side, indicating he should come up on that flank. He understood, and slowly the Banamaðr crept up to my right. We would go into battle together, but not where the enemy hoped.

‘Christ!’ Finan swore. ‘That big bastard has a lot of men!’

‘Which big bastard?’

‘The one in the centre. Seventy men? Eighty?’

‘How many on the snake bastard?’

‘Maybe forty, fifty?’

‘Enough to frighten a merchantman,’ I said.

‘They don’t seem frightened of us,’ he said drily. The three larger ships were still coursing towards us, confident that they outnumbered us. ‘Be careful of that big bastard,’ Finan said, pointing to the middle ship, the one with the larger crew.

I gazed at the ship, which had a lime-washed cross mounted high on its prow. ‘Doesn’t matter how many they have,’ I said, ‘they reckon we only have forty men.’

‘They do?’ he seemed amused by my confidence.

‘They tortured Haggar. What could he tell them? They’d have asked how often our ships go to sea and how many men crewed them. What would he have said?’

‘That you keep two warships in the harbour, that Spearhafoc is the bigger one, and usually has a crew of forty, but sometimes not so many.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And that usually it’s Berg who takes her to sea.’

Berg was Egil’s youngest brother, and I had saved his life on a Welsh beach many years before and, ever since, he had served me well and faithfully. Berg had been disappointed to be left behind on this voyage, but with Finan and me at sea, he was the best man to command Bebbanburg’s remaining garrison. I would usually have left my son in charge, but he was in the central hills of Northumbria to settle a dispute between two of my tenants.

‘They think we’re about forty men,’ I said, ‘and they’ll reckon Banamaðr at about thirty.’ I laughed, then touched the hilt of Serpent-Breath, my sword, before shouting across to Egil. ‘Turn now!’ I heaved the steering-oar to windward and Spearhafoc dipped her prow as she slewed around. ‘Tighten the sail!’ I shouted. The trap was sprung, and now the snake would discover how the wolf and the eagle fought.

I had tightened Spearhafoc’s sail to quicken her again. She was faster than the enemy’s ships. I could see the weed thick on the snake-ship’s bottom whenever she reared on a wave. She was slow. We dried our ships out on a falling tide and scraped their lower hulls clean, which kept us fast. I turned back towards Banamaðr. ‘I plan to sink the bastard,’ I shouted, ‘then go east after the second one!’

Egil waved, and I assumed he had heard me. Not that it mattered, Spearhafoc was pulling ahead, she was as close to the wind as I dared take her, but she was carving her swift path, she was breaking the sea white at her cutwater. She was as deadly as her name now, and Egil would realise soon enough what I planned.

‘You’re going to ram her?’ Finan asked.

‘If I can, and I want you in the prow. If I don’t hit her right you’ll need to get aboard her and kill their helmsman. Then ditch their steering-oar.’

Finan went forward, shouting at men to follow him. We were closing on the snake-ship now, near enough to see a group of men in her bow and see the spears they carried. Their helmets reflected the light. One clung to the forestay, another hefted his spear. There was a group of archers in the belly of the boat, arrows already on their strings. ‘Beornoth!’ I shouted, ‘Folcbald! Come here! Bring your shields!’ Beornoth was a stolid, reliable man, a Saxon, while Folcbald was an enormous Frisian, one of my strongest warriors. ‘You’re to protect me,’ I said. ‘You see those archers? They’ll aim for me.’

The helmsman was in the most vulnerable place on a ship. Most of my men were crouched in Spearhafoc’s belly behind raised shields, Finan had gone to the bow where he and six men also made a barrier of shields, but I had to stand at the steering-oar. The arrows would come soon, we were seething through the green seas and were close enough that I could see the nail heads on the snake-ship’s hull. I glanced to my left. The other three enemy ships had seen where we were going and had turned to help, but that turn meant they were now heading directly into the wind and their sails were flattening against the masts. Men were scrambling to lower the sails and to thrust oars through their holes, but they were slow and their ships were being blown backwards and pitching hard in the rising seas.

‘Now!’ Beornoth growled and raised his shield. He had seen the archers loose their arrows.

A half-dozen arrows thumped into the sail, others flickered past to plunge into the sea. I could hear the waves roaring, the wind’s song through the rigging, and then I shoved the steering blade hard, putting all my strength into the oar’s great loom, and I saw the snake-ship turning towards us, which is what her helmsman should have done moments before, but now it was too late. We were close, and closing fast. ‘Spears!’ Finan shouted the warning from the prow.

‘Brace!’ I bellowed. An arrow glanced off the iron rim at the top of Folcbald’s shield, a spear-blade scarred the deck at my feet, then Spearhafoc heeled into the turn and a gust of wind buried her rail. I staggered, an arrow smacked hard into the sternpost, then Spearhafoc recovered, her sail protesting as we turned into the wind, water streaming from her scuppers, and above the sounds of the sea and the howl of the wind I heard the shouts of alarm from the enemy.

‘Hold hard!’ I shouted at my crew.

And we struck.

We lurched violently forward as we jarred to a stop. There was a huge splintering sound, bellows of fright, a churning of water, curses. The backstay beside me tautened frighteningly and, for an instant, I thought our mast would collapse across the bows, but the twisted sealhide held, even though it vibrated like a plucked harp string. Beornoth and Folcbald both fell. Spearhafoc had ridden up on the snake-ship’s hull and now settled back with a grinding noise. We had turned into the wind to ram the enemy and I had worried that we would lose way and so strike her less hard than if we had rammed her downwind, but Spearhafoc’s weight and speed had been enough to shatter the snake-ship’s hull. Our sail was now pressed against the mast and was pushing us back, though it seemed as if our bow was tangled with the enemy’s hull because the ships stayed together and Spearhafoc slewed slowly around to larboard and, to my alarm, she began to go down at the prow. Then I heard a sharp crack and Spearhafoc quivered, there was a ripping sound, and she suddenly righted. Her prow had been caught by the broken strakes of the snake-ship’s hull, but she had broken free.

The snake-ship was sinking. We had struck her with our prow, the strongest part of Spearhafoc’s hull, and we had splintered her low freeboard as easily as cracking an egg. Water was flowing in, she was tilting, and her bilge, which was crammed with ballast stones, was flooding fast. Her crew, dressed in mail, was doomed, except for those few who had managed to cling to our ship, and meanwhile we were being blown backwards towards the other enemy boats, who, their oars at last in the water, were straining to reach us. We were wallowing. I bellowed at men to haul in the larboard sheet of the sail and loosen the steerboard sheet. To my right the snake-ship was on her side in a maelstrom of white water, surrounded by flotsam, and then she vanished, the last sight of her a small triangular banner at the peak of her canted mast.

I thrust the steering-oar over, praying that Spearhafoc would gain enough way to make the oar’s big blade bite, but she was still sluggish. Our prisoners, there were five of them, had been hauled inboard, and Finan had men stripping them of mail, helmets, and sword belts. ‘Watch behind, lord!’ Folcbald said, sounding alarmed.

The nearest enemy ship, the vessel with the lime-washed cross on her high prow, was closing on us. She was as large as Spearhafoc and looked much heavier. Her crew was bigger than the snake-ship’s doomed crew, but her commander had only ordered twenty-four men to the oars, a dozen on each side, because he wanted the rest ready to leap aboard Spearhafoc. There were helmeted warriors in the bows and more crammed into her waist. At least seventy of them, I thought, maybe more. The first arrows flew, and most went high to slap into our sail, but one whipped close beside me. I instinctively made sure Serpent-Breath was at my side and shouted for Roric.

‘Lord?’ he called back.

‘Have my shield ready!’ The cross-prowed ship was lumbering towards us, and we were being wind-driven towards her. She was not coming fast because she was rowing into the wind, she was heavy, and she had too few oarsmen, so it was doubtful that she could sink us as we had sunk the snake-ship, but the height of her prow would let her warriors leap down into our wide belly.

Then Banamaðr suddenly crossed our bows. She was running before the wind and I saw Egil thrust his steering-oar to turn towards the cross-prowed ship. The helmsman of that ship saw the Norseman coming and, even though Banamaðr was half his size, he must have feared being rammed because he shouted at his larboard oarsmen to back water and so slewed to meet Egil’s threat bows on. He was close to us now, so close! I shoved the steering-oar, but still it would not bite, which meant Spearhafoc was dead in the water and still being wind-driven towards the enemy. I let go of the oar’s loom and took my shield from Roric. ‘Get ready!’ I shouted. I drew Wasp-Sting, my seax, and the short blade hissed from the fleece-lined scabbard. Broken waves slopped between our ships. The enemy ship had turned towards Egil and would now crash broadside into us, and her crew, armed and mailed, was standing ready to leap. I saw a half-dozen archers raise their bows, then there was sudden chaos in the belly of the cross-prowed ship as Banamaðr slid down her larboard side to shatter the oars. The oar looms were driven hard into the bellies of the rowers, the ship seemed to shiver, the archers staggered and their arrows flew wild, Egil loosed his sail to fly free in the wind as he turned to slide his bows against the enemy’s stern. He had men with long-bearded axes ready to grapple the enemy, Banamaðr’s bows glanced on the enemy’s stern quarter, both ships lurched, the axes fell to draw the two hulls together and I saw the first screaming Norsemen leap onto the cross-prowed ship’s stern.

Then we hit. We crashed into the enemy’s steerboard oars first, which cracked and splintered, but also held her off for a moment. One huge man, his mouth open as he yelled, leaped at Spearhafoc, but his own ship lurched as he jumped and his bellow of defiance turned into a desperate shout as he fell between the ships. He flailed as he tried to grab our rail, but one of my men kicked his hands and he vanished, dragged down by his armour. The wind drove our stern against the enemy and I jumped onto her steering platform, followed by Folcbald and Beornoth. Egil’s savage Norsemen had already killed the helmsman and were now fighting in the belly of the boat, and I was shouting at men to follow me. I jumped down from the steering platform, and a boy, no more than a child, screamed in terror. I kicked him under a rower’s bench and snarled at him to stay there.

‘Another bastard coming!’ Oswi, who had once been my servant and had become an eager, vicious fighter, shouted from Spearhafoc, and I saw the last of the enemy’s larger ships was coming to the rescue of the boat we had boarded. Thorolf, Egil’s brother, had stayed aboard Banamaðr with just three men, and they now loosed their ship and let the wind carry her out of the approaching boat’s way. More of my men were leaping aboard to join me, but there was little room for us to fight. The wide belly of the boat was crammed with warriors, the Norsemen grinding forward from bench to bench, their shield wall stretching the full width of the big ship’s waist. The enemy crew was trapped there between Egil’s ferocious attackers and Finan’s men, who had managed to reach the platform on the prow and were thrusting down with spears. Our challenge then would be to defeat the third ship, which was being rowed towards us. I climbed back onto the steering platform.

The approaching ship, like the one on which we fought, had a cross high on her prow. It was a dark cross, the wood smeared with pitch, and behind it were crammed the armed and helmeted warriors. The ship was heavy and slow. A man at the prow was shouting instructions to the helmsman and thrusting an arm northwards, and slowly the big ship turned that way and I saw the men in the prow raise their shields. They planned to board us at our stern and attack Egil’s men from behind. The rowers on the ship’s steerboard side slid their long looms from the holes and the big ship coasted slowly towards us. The rowers picked up shields and drew swords. I noted that the shields were not painted, bearing neither a cross nor any other symbol. If these men had been sent by Æthelhelm, and I was increasingly sure of that, they had clearly been ordered to disguise that truth. ‘Shield wall!’ I shouted. ‘And brace yourselves!’

There must have been a dozen men on the steering platform with me. There was no room for more, though the enemy, whose prow was higher than our stern, planned to join us. I looked through the finger-width gap between my shield and Folcbald’s and saw the great prow just feet away. A wave lifted it, then it crashed down and slammed into us, splintering the top strake, then the enemy’s dark bow grated down our stern as I staggered from the impact. I had a glimpse of a man leaping onto me, axe raised, and I lifted the shield and felt the shudder as his axe buried its blade in the willow board.

Almost any fight on shipboard is a confusion of men packed too close together. In battle even the best disciplined shield wall tends to spread as men try to make room for their weapons, but on a ship there is no space to spread. There is only the foetid breath of an enemy trying to kill you, the press of men and steel, the screams of blade-pierced victims, the raw stink of blood in the scuppers, and the crush of death on a lurching deck.

Which is why I had drawn Wasp-Sting. She is a short blade, scarce longer than my fore-arm, but there is no room to swing a long-sword in the crush of death. Except there was no crush. The ship had struck us, had broken the strake, but even as more of the enemy readied themselves to leap down at us, a heave of the sea lifted and drove their ship back. Not far, scarcely a pace on land, but the first men to leap flailed as the ships drifted apart. The axeman, his blade still buried in my shield, sprawled on the deck and Folcbald, on my right, stabbed down with his seax and the man shrieked like a child as the blade punctured mail, broke ribs and buried itself in the man’s lungs. I kicked the man’s shrieking face, stabbed Wasp-Sting into his thick beard, and saw the blood spread across the ship’s pale deck planks.

‘More coming!’ Beornoth shouted behind me. I ripped Wasp-Sting to one side, widening the bloody slash in the axeman’s throat, then raised my shield and half crouched. I saw the dark prow loom again, saw it strike our hull again, and then something heavy struck my shield. I could not see what it was, but blood was dripping from the iron rim. ‘Got him!’ Beornoth called. He was close behind me, and, like most of the second rank, was holding an ash-shafted spear that slanted towards the enemy ship’s high prow. Men who leaped on us risked being impaled on those long blades. Another heave of the waves parted the ships again, and the dying man slid from my shield as Beornoth tugged the spear-blade loose. The dying man still moved, and Wasp-Sting struck again. The deck was red now, red and slippery. Another enemy, face contorted in rage, made a giant leap, hammering his shield forward to break our line, but Beornoth heaved on me from behind and the man’s shield clashed on mine and he staggered back against the rail. He lunged his seax past my shield, his toothless mouth opened in a silent bellow of rage, but the point of his blade slid off my mail and I hammered my shield forward and the man cursed as he was forced backwards. I pushed my shield again, and he cried aloud as he fell between the ships.

The wind drove us back onto the big enemy ship. Her prow was a good three feet higher than the stern where we stood. Five men had managed to board us, and all five were dead, and now the enemy on that high prow tried to kill us by thrusting spears at us. The lunges were futile, simply banging into our shields. I could hear a man encouraging them. ‘They’re pagans! Do God’s work! Board them and slaughter them!’

But they had no belly for boarding. They had to jump down onto the waiting spears, and instead I could see men going to the waist of their ship where it would be easier to cross to us, except that Egil’s men had finished their killing and now waited for the next fight. ‘Beornoth!’ I somehow stepped back, forcing my way through the second rank. ‘Stay here,’ I told him, ‘keep those bastards busy.’ I left six men to help him, then led the rest down into the blood-spattered waist. ‘Oswi! Folcbald! We’re crossing over! All of you! Come!’

The wind and sea were turning us so that at any moment the two ships would lie side by side. The enemy waited in their ship’s belly. They had a shield wall, which told me they did not want to board us, but instead were daring us to leap aboard their ship and die on their shields. They were not shouting, they looked frightened, and a frightened enemy is already half beaten. ‘Bebbanburg!’ I bellowed, stepped onto a rower’s bench, ran, and jumped. The man who had shouted that we were pagans was still yelling, ‘Kill them! Kill them!’ He was on the prow’s high platform where a dozen men were still thrusting futile spears at Beornoth and his companions. The rest of the crew, and I doubted they numbered more than forty, were facing us in the dark ship’s belly. The man in front of me, a youngster with terrified eyes, a leather helmet and a battered shield, stepped back as I landed. ‘You want to die?’ I snarled at him. ‘Throw your shield down, boy, and live.’

Instead he raised the shield and thrust it at me. He screamed as he thrust, though he had taken no hurt. I met his shield with my own, turned mine so that his turned too, and that opened his body for Wasp-Sting’s lethal thrust that took him low in the belly. I ripped her upwards, gutting him like a fat salmon. Folcbald was to my right, Oswi to my left, and the three of us broke through the thin shield wall, stepping over dying men, slipping on blood. Then I heard Finan shout, ‘I’ve got their stern!’

A man came from my right, Folcbald tripped him, Wasp-Sting sliced across his eyes and he was still screaming as Folcbald heaved him overboard. I turned and saw that Finan and his men were on the steering platform. They were throwing the dead overboard and, for all I knew, the living as well. The enemy was now split into two groups, some at the prow, the rest between my men and Finan’s men who were being joined by Egil’s eager warriors. Egil himself, his sword, Adder, red to the hilt, was carving a path between the rowers’ benches. Men shrank from his Norse fury. ‘Throw down your shields!’ I called to the enemy. ‘Throw down your blades!’

‘Kill them!’ the man on the prow shouted, ‘God is on our side! We cannot be defeated!’

‘You can die,’ Oswi snarled.

I had twenty men with me. I left ten to guard against the men behind us as I led the rest towards the prow. We made a shield wall, and slowly, obstructed by the rowers’ benches and by the discarded oars, we walked forward. We clashed blades against our shields, we shouted insults, we were death approaching, and the enemy had taken enough. They dropped their shields, threw down their weapons, and knelt in submission. More of my men clambered aboard, joined by Egil’s Norsemen. A shriek told me that a man died behind me, but it was the last shriek from a defeated crew because this enemy was beaten. I glanced right to see that the fourth enemy ship, the smallest one, had sheeted in her sail and was racing southwards. She was running away. ‘This fight is over,’ I called to the enemy who were now crammed beneath the cross that decorated the prow of their ship. ‘Don’t die for nothing.’ We had sunk one ship and captured two. ‘Throw down your shields!’ I called as I stepped forward, ‘It’s over!’

Shields clattered on the deck. Spears and swords were dropped. It was over, all except for one defiant warrior, just one. He was young, tall, and had a thick blond beard and fiery eyes. He stood on the prow where he carried a long-sword and a plain shield. ‘God is on our side!’ he shouted, ‘God won’t desert us! God never fails!’ He hammered the blade against his shield. ‘Pick up your weapons and kill them!’

Not one of his companions moved. They knew they were beaten, their only hope now was that we would let them live. The young man, who had a silver chain and crucifix hanging over his mail, hammered the sword a last time, realised he was alone and, to my astonishment, jumped down from the prow’s platform and took two paces towards me. ‘You are Uhtredærwe?’ he demanded.

‘Men call me that,’ I acknowledged mildly.

‘We were sent to kill you.’

‘You’re not the first to be sent on that errand,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am God’s chosen one.’

His face was framed by his helmet, which was a fine piece of work, chased with silver and topped by a cross on the ridged crest. He was good-looking, tall and proud. ‘Does God’s chosen one have a name?’ I asked. I tossed Wasp-Sting to Oswi and slid Serpent-Breath from her fleece-lined scabbard. God’s chosen one seemed determined to fight, and he would fight alone, so there would be room for Serpent-Breath to work her savagery.

‘My name,’ the young man said haughtily, ‘is for God to know. Father!’ he turned and shouted.

‘My son?’ a harsh voice answered. It was a priest who had been standing amidst the spearmen on the ship’s prow and, from his grating voice, I recognised him as the man who had been encouraging our slaughter.

‘If I die here I’ll go to heaven?’ The youngster asked the question earnestly.

‘You will be at God’s side this very day, my son. You will be with the blessed saints! Now do God’s work!’

The young man knelt for an instant. He closed his eyes and made a clumsy sign of the cross with the hand holding his sword. Egil’s men, my men, and the surviving enemy watched, and I saw the Christians among my crew also make the sign of the cross. Were they praying for me or were they begging forgiveness because they had captured cross-prowed ships? ‘Don’t be a fool, boy,’ I said.

‘I am no fool,’ he said proudly as he stood. ‘God does not choose fools to do his work.’

‘Which is?’

‘To rid the earth of your wickedness.’

‘In my experience,’ I said, ‘your god almost always chooses fools.’

‘Then I will be God’s fool,’ he said defiantly. There was a clatter behind him and he turned, startled, only to see that another of his companions had thrown down spear and shield. ‘You should have more faith,’ he told the man derisively, then turned to me and charged.

He was brave, of course. Brave and foolish. He knew he would die. Maybe not at my hands, but if he had succeeded in killing me then my men would have hacked him down mercilessly, which meant this fool knew he had only minutes to live, yet he believed he would have another life in the sunlit boredom of the Christian heaven. And did he believe he could kill me? Nothing is certain in battle. He might have killed me if he had both the sword-skill and the shield-craft that make a great warrior, but I suspected his faith was not rooted in hard-won craft, but in the belief that his god would reach down and give him victory, and that foolish belief spurred him towards me.

While he had been praying I had slipped my hand out of my shield’s leather grips and was now holding it by just the outer loop. He must have noticed, but he thought nothing of it. I held both shield and sword low, waited until he was just six or seven paces away, then I drew my left arm back and threw the shield. I threw it low, threw it hard, and threw it at his feet and, sure enough, he tripped on the shield and a heave of the waves tipped him sideways so that he sprawled on a rower’s bench, and I stepped forward, swept Serpent-Breath once, and her blade hit his blade with a dull sound and broke it. Two-thirds of his sword clattered across the deck as he desperately stabbed the remaining stub at my thigh. I reached down and took his wrist and held it firm. ‘Are you really so eager to die?’ I asked him.

He struggled against my grip, then tried to hit me with the iron-rimmed edge of his shield, which banged against my thigh without hurting me. ‘Give me another sword,’ he demanded.

I laughed at that. ‘Answer me, fool. Are you really so eager to die?’

‘God commanded me to kill you!’

‘Or were you told to kill me by a priest who dripped poison in your ear?’ I asked.

He drove the shield against me again so I placed Serpent-Breath in its way. ‘God commanded me,’ he insisted.

‘Then your nailed god is as big a fool as you,’ I said harshly. ‘Where are you from, fool?’

He hesitated, but I squeezed his wrist and bent his arm back painfully. ‘Wessex,’ he muttered.

‘I can tell that from your accent. Whereabouts in Wessex?’

‘Andefera,’ he spoke reluctantly.

‘And Andefera,’ I said, ‘is in Wiltunscir.’ He nodded. ‘Where Æthelhelm is ealdorman,’ I added, and saw him flinch at Æthelhelm’s name. ‘Let go of the sword, boy.’

He resisted, but I bent his wrist again and he let the broken sword fall. Judging by the hilt that was decorated with gold wire it had been an expensive sword, but it had shattered when it was struck by Serpent-Breath. I tossed the hilt to Oswi. ‘Take this holy fool and tie him to Spearhafoc’s mast,’ I said, ‘he can live.’

‘But Spearhafoc might not,’ Finan said drily. ‘She’s foundering.’

I looked across the deck of the intervening ship and saw that Finan was right.

Spearhafoc was sinking.

Spearhafoc had sprung two planks when she struck the first enemy ship, and water was pouring into her bows. By the time I reached her she was already low at the prow. Gerbruht, a big Frisian, had ripped up the deck planking and now had men lifting the ballast stones, which they carried to the stern to balance the ship. ‘We can plug it, lord!’ he shouted when he saw me. ‘The leak’s only on one side.’

‘Do you need men?’ I called.

‘We’ll manage!’

Egil had followed me onto Spearhafoc’s stern. ‘We’ll not catch that last one,’ he said, looking at the enemy’s smallest ship, which was now almost at the southern horizon.

‘I’m hoping to save this one,’ I said grimly. Gerbruht might be optimistic about plugging Spearhafoc’s leaks, but the wind was rising and the seas building. A dozen men were bailing the ship, some using their helmets to scoop the water overboard. ‘Still,’ I went on, ‘we can get home in one of those ships.’ I nodded towards the two we’d captured.

‘They’re lumps of shit,’ Egil said, ‘too heavy!’

‘They might be useful for cargo,’ I suggested.

‘Better as firewood.’

Gerbruht, his hands under the bilge’s water, was stuffing cloth into the gap left by the sprung planks, while other men were hurling water overboard. One of the two enemy ships we had captured was also leaking, the ship with the lime-washed cross, which had been damaged when the last ship joined the fight. Her stern had been hit by the larger boat and her planking had cracked to spring a leak at the waterline. We put most of our prisoners on that ship, after taking their weapons, their mail, their shields, and their helmets. We took their sail, which was new and valuable, and their few supplies, which were meagre; some rock-hard cheese, a sack of damp bread, and two barrels of ale. I left them just six oars and then cut them loose. ‘You’re letting them go?’ Egil asked, surprised.

‘I don’t want to feed the bastards at Bebbanburg,’ I said. ‘And how far can they go? They’ve no food, nothing to drink, and no sail. Half of them are wounded and they’re in a leaking boat. If they’ve any sense they’ll row for shore.’

‘Against the wind,’ Egil was amused at the thought.

‘And when they get ashore,’ I said, ‘they’ll have no weapons. So welcome to Northumbria.’

We had rescued eleven of the fishermen who had crewed the Gydene and the Swealwe, all of them forced to row for their captors. The prisoners we had taken were all either West Saxons or East Anglians and subjects of King Edward, if he still lived. I had kept a dozen to take back to Bebbanburg, including the priest who had so feverishly called on his men to slaughter us. He was brought to me on Spearhafoc, which was still bows down, but Gerbruht’s efforts were stemming the worst of the leak, and moving much of the ballast aft had steadied the hull.

The priest was young and stocky, with a round face, black hair, and a sour expression. There was something familiar about him. ‘Have we met?’ I asked.

‘Thank God, no.’

He was standing just below the steering platform, guarded by a grinning Beornoth. We had raised the sail and were going northwards, going home, driven by the steady west wind. Most of my men were on the large ship we had captured, only a few were still on Spearhafoc, and those few were still bailing water. The young man who had sworn to kill me was still tied to the mast, from where he glowered at me. ‘That young fool,’ I said, talking to the priest and nodding towards the young man, ‘is from Wessex, but you sound Mercian.’

‘Christ’s kingdom has no boundaries,’ he retorted.

‘Unlike my mercy,’ I said, to which he answered nothing. ‘I’m from Northumbria,’ I went on, ignoring his defiance, ‘and in Northumbria I am an ealdorman. You call me lord.’ He still said nothing, just looked up at me with a scowl. Spearhafoc was still sluggish, reluctant to lift her bows, but she was sailing and she was heading home. Banamaðr and the captured ship were keeping us company, ready to take us off if Spearhafoc began to sink, though minute by minute I sensed that she would survive to be dragged ashore and repaired. ‘You call me lord,’ I repeated. ‘Where are you from?’

‘Christ’s kingdom.’

Beornoth drew back a meaty hand to strike the priest, but I shook my head. ‘You see that we’re in danger of sinking?’ I asked the priest, who stayed stubbornly silent. I doubted he could sense that Spearhafoc, far from foundering, was recovering her grace. ‘And if we do sink,’ I went on, ‘I’ll tie you to the mast alongside that idiot child. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know. Where are you from?’

‘I was born in Mercia,’ he spoke reluctantly, ‘but God saw fit to send me to Wessex.’

‘If he doesn’t call me lord again,’ I told Beornoth, ‘you can smack him as hard as you like.’ I smiled at the priest. ‘Where in Wessex?’

‘Wintanceaster,’ he said, paused, then sensed Beornoth moving and hastily added, ‘lord.’

‘And what,’ I asked, ‘is a priest from Wintanceaster doing in a ship off the Northumbrian coast?’

‘We were sent to kill you!’ he snarled, then yelped as Beornoth smacked the back of his head.

‘Be strong in the Lord, father!’ the young man shouted from the mast.

‘What is that idiot’s name?’ I asked, amused.

The priest hesitated a heartbeat, giving the young man a sideways glance. ‘Wistan, lord,’ he said.

‘And your name?’ I asked.

‘Father Ceolnoth,’ there was again a slight pause before he added ‘lord.’

And I knew then why he was familiar and why he hated me. And that made me laugh. We limped on home.