Читать книгу The Flame Bearer - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 12

We arrived at Eoferwic, or Jorvik as the Danes and Norse call it, on the next Sunday, and were greeted by the ringing of church bells. Brida, who had been my lover before she became my enemy, had tried to eradicate Christianity in Eoferwic. She had murdered the old archbishop, slaughtered many of his priests, and burned the churches, but Sigtryggr, the new ruler in the city, did not care what god any man or woman worshipped so long as they paid their taxes and kept the peace, and so the new Christian shrines had sprung up like mushrooms after rain. There was also a new archbishop, Hrothweard, a West Saxon who was reputed to be a decent enough man. We arrived around midday under a bright sun, the first sun we had seen since we had ridden from Ætgefrin. We rode to the palace, close by the rebuilt cathedral, but there I was told that Sigtryggr had gone to Lindcolne with his forces. ‘But the queen is here?’ I asked the elderly doorkeeper as I dismounted.

‘She rode with her husband, lord.’

I grunted disapprovingly, though my daughter’s taste for danger did not surprise me, indeed it would have astonished me if she had not ridden south with Sigtryggr. ‘And the children?’

‘Gone to Lindcolne too, lord.’

I flinched from the aches in my bones. ‘So who’s in charge here?’

‘Boldar Gunnarson, lord.’

I knew Boldar as a reliable, experienced warrior. I also thought of him as old, though in truth he might have been a year or two younger than I was and, like me, he had been scarred by war. He had been left with a limp thanks to a Saxon spear that had torn up his right calf, and he had lost an eye to a Mercian arrow, and those wounds had taught him caution. ‘There’s no news of the war,’ he told me, ‘but of course it could be another week before we hear anything.’

‘Is there really war?’ I asked him.

‘There are Saxons on our territory, lord,’ he said carefully, ‘and I don’t suppose they’ve come here to dance with us.’ He had been left with a scanty garrison to defend Eoferwic, and if there really was a West Saxon army rampaging in southern Northumbria then he had best hope it never reached the city’s Roman ramparts, just as he had best pray to the gods that Constantin did not decide to cross the wall and march south. ‘Will you be staying here, lord?’ he asked, doubtless hoping my men would stiffen his diminished garrison.

‘We’ll leave in the morning,’ I told him. I would have gone sooner, but our horses needed rest and I needed news. Boldar had no real idea what happened to the south, so Finan suggested we talked to the new archbishop. ‘Monks are always writing to each other,’ he said, ‘monks and priests. They know more about what’s going on than most kings! And they say Archbishop Hrothweard’s a good man.’

‘I don’t trust him.’

‘You’ve never met him!’

‘He’s a Christian,’ I said, ‘and so are the West Saxons. So who would he rather have on the throne here? A Christian or Sigtryggr? No, you go and talk to him. Wave your crucifix at him and try not to fart.’

My son and I walked east, leaving the city through one of the massive gates and following a lane to the river bank where a row of buildings edged a long wharf used by trading ships that came from every port of the North Sea. Here a man could buy a ship or timber, cordage or pitch, sailcloth or slaves. There were three taverns, the largest of which was the Duck, which sold ale, food, and whores, and it was there that we sat at a table just outside the door. ‘Nice to see the sun again,’ Olla, the tavern’s owner, greeted me.

‘Be nicer still to see some ale,’ I said.

Olla grinned, ‘And it’s good to see you, lord. Just ale? I’ve a pretty little thing just arrived from Frisia?’

‘Just ale.’

‘She won’t know what she’s missing,’ he said, then went to fetch the ale while we leaned against the tavern’s outside wall. The sun was warm, its reflections sparkling on the river where swans paddled slowly upstream. A big trading ship was tied up nearby and three naked slaves were cleaning her. ‘She’s for sale,’ Olla said when he brought the ale.

‘Looks heavy.’

‘She’s a pig of a boat. You wanting to buy, lord?’

‘Not her, maybe something leaner?’

‘Prices have gone up,’ Olla said, ‘better to wait till there’s snow on the ground.’ He sat on a stool at the table’s end. ‘You want food? The wife’s made a nice fish stew and the bread’s fresh baked.’

‘I’m hungry,’ my son said.

‘For fish or Frisians?’ I asked.

‘Both, but fish first.’

Olla rapped the table and waited until a pretty young girl came from the tavern. ‘Three bowls of the stew, darling,’ he said, ‘and two of the new loaves. And a jug of ale, some butter, and wipe your nose.’ He waited till she had darted back indoors. ‘You got any lively young warriors that need a wife, lord?’ he asked.

‘Plenty,’ I said, ‘including this lump,’ I gestured at my son.

‘She’s my daughter,’ he said, nodding at the door where the girl had vanished, ‘and a handful. I found her trying to sell her younger brother to Haruld yesterday.’ Haruld was the slave-dealer three buildings upriver.

‘I hope she got a good price,’ I said.

‘Oh, she’d have driven a hard bargain, that one. Fleas don’t grow old on her. Hanna!’ he shouted, ‘Hanna!’

‘Father?’ The girl peered around the door.

‘How old are you?’

‘Twelve, father.’

‘See?’ he looked at me, ‘ready for marriage.’ He reached down and scratched a sleeping dog between the ears. ‘And you, lord?’

‘I’m already married.’

Olla grinned. ‘Been a while since you drank my ale. So what brings you here?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

He nodded. ‘Hornecastre.’

‘Hornecastre,’ I confirmed. ‘I don’t know the place.’

‘Nothing much there,’ he said, ‘except an old fort.’

‘Roman?’ I guessed.

‘What else? The West Saxons rule up to the Gewasc now,’ he sounded gloomy, ‘and for some reason they’ve sent men further north to Hornecastre. They planted themselves in the old fort and as far as I know they’re still there.’

‘How many?’

‘Enough. Maybe three hundred? Four?’ That sounded like a formidable war-band, but even four hundred men would have a hard time assaulting Lindcolne’s stone walls.

‘I was told we were at war,’ I said bitterly. ‘Four hundred men sitting in a fort might be a nuisance, but it’s hardly the end of Northumbria.’

‘I doubt they’re there to pick daisies,’ Olla said. ‘They’re West Saxons and they’re on our land. King Sigtryggr can’t just leave them there.’

‘True.’ I poured myself more ale. ‘Do you know who leads them?’

‘Brunulf.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He’s a West Saxon,’ Olla said. He got his news from folk who drank in his tavern, many of them sailors whose ships traded up and down the coast, but he knew of Brunulf because of a Danish family who had been ejected from their steading just north of the old fort and who had sheltered in the Duck for a night on their way north to lodge with relatives. ‘He didn’t kill any of them, lord.’

‘Brunulf didn’t?’

‘They said he was courteous! But the whole village had to leave. Of course they lost their livestock.’

‘And their homes.’

‘And their homes, lord, but not one of them was so much as scratched! Not a child taken as a slave, not a woman raped, nothing.’

‘Gentle invaders,’ I said.

‘So your son-in-law,’ Olla went on, ‘took over four hundred men south, but I hear he wants to be gentle too. He’d rather talk the bastards out of Hornecastre than start a war.’

‘So he’s become sensible?’

‘Your daughter is, lord. She’s the one who insists we don’t prod the wasps’ nest.’

‘And here’s your daughter,’ I said, as Hanna brought a tray laden with bowls and jugs.

‘Put it there, darling,’ Olla said, tapping the table top.

‘So how much did Haruld offer you for your brother?’ I asked her.

‘Three shillings, lord.’ She was bright-eyed, brown-haired, with an infectiously cheeky grin.

‘Why did you want to sell him?’

‘Because he’s a turd, lord.’

I laughed. ‘You should have taken the money then. Three shillings is a good price for a turd.’

‘Father wouldn’t let me.’ She pouted, then pretended to have a bright idea. ‘Maybe my brother could serve you, lord?’ She made a ghastly grimace. ‘Then he’d die in a battle?’

‘Go away, you horrible thing,’ her father said.

‘Hanna!’ I called her back. ‘Your father says you’re ready to be married.’

‘Another year, maybe,’ Olla put in quickly.

‘You want to marry this one?’ I asked, pointing to my son.

‘No, lord!’

‘Why not?’

‘He looks like you, lord,’ she said, grinned, and vanished.

I laughed, but my son looked offended. ‘I do not look like you,’ he said.

‘You do,’ Olla said.

‘God help me then.’

And god help Northumbria, I thought. Brunulf? I knew nothing of him, but assumed he was competent enough to be given command of several hundred men, but why had he been sent to Hornecastre? Was King Edward trying to provoke a war? His sister Æthelflaed might have made peace with Sigtryggr, but Wessex had not signed the treaty, and the eagerness of some West Saxons to invade Northumbria was no secret. But sending a few hundred men a small distance into Northumbria, ejecting the nearby Danes without slaughter, and then settling into an old fort did not sound like a savage invasion. Brunulf and his men, I decided, were in Hornecastre as a provocation, designed to make us attack them and so start a war we would lose. ‘Sigtryggr wants me to join him,’ I told Olla.

‘If he can’t talk them out of the fort then he’s hoping you’ll scare them out,’ he said flatteringly.

I tasted the fish stew and discovered I was ravenous. ‘So why is the price of ships going up?’ I asked.

‘You won’t believe this, lord. It’s the archbishop.’

‘Hrothweard?’

Olla shrugged. ‘He says it’s time the monks went back to Lindisfarena.’

I stared at him. ‘He says what?’

‘He wants to rebuild the monastery!’ Olla said.

There had been no monks on Lindisfarena for half a lifetime, not since marauding Danes had killed the last of them. In my father’s time it had been the most important Christian shrine in all Britain, surpassing even Contwaraburg, attracting hordes of pilgrims who came to pray beside Saint Cuthbert’s grave. My father had profited because the monastery was just north of the fortress, on its own island, and the pilgrims spent silver buying candles, food, lodging, and whores in Bebbanburg’s village. I had no doubt that the Christians wanted to rebuild the place, but right now it was in Scottish hands. Olla jerked his head eastwards along the bank. ‘See that pile of timber? It’s all good seasoned oak from Sumorsæte. That’s what the archbishop wants to use. That and some stone, so he needs a dozen ships to carry it all.’

‘King Constantin might not approve,’ I said grimly.

‘What’s it got to do with him?’ Olla asked.

‘You hadn’t heard? The damned Scots have invaded Bebbanburg’s land.’

‘Sweet Christ! Truly, lord?’

‘Truly. That bastard Constantin claims Lindisfarena is part of Scotland now. He’ll want his own monks there, not Hrothweard’s Saxons.’

Olla grimaced. ‘The archbishop won’t like that! The damned Scots in Lindisfarena!’

I had a sudden thought and frowned as I considered it. ‘You know who owns most of the island?’ I asked Olla.

‘Your family, lord,’ he said, which was a tactful answer.

‘The church owns the monastery ruins,’ I said, ‘but the rest of the island belongs to Bebbanburg. Do you think the archbishop asked my cousin’s permission to build there? He doesn’t need it, but life would be easier if my cousin agreed.’

Olla hesitated. He knew how I felt about my cousin. ‘I think the suggestion came from your cousin, lord.’

Which was exactly what I had suddenly suspected. ‘That weasel shit,’ I said. From the moment that Sigtryggr became King of Northumbria my cousin must have known that I would attack him, and he had doubtless made the suggestion to Hrothweard so that the church would support him. He would turn the defence of Bebbanburg into a Christian crusade. Constantin had at least ended that hope, I thought.

‘But before that,’ Olla went on, ‘the mad bishop tried to build a church there. Or he wanted to.’

I laughed. Any mention of the mad bishop always amused me. ‘He did?’

‘So Archbishop Hrothweard wants to stop that nonsense. Of course you never know what to believe about that crazy bastard, but it was no secret that the fool wanted to build a new monastery on the island.’

The mad bishop might have been mad, but he was no bishop. He was a Danish jarl named Dagfinnr who had declared himself the Bishop of Gyruum and given himself a new name, Ieremias. He and his men occupied the old fort at Gyruum, just south of Bebbanburg’s land on the southern bank of the River Tinan. Gyruum was part of Dunholm’s holdings, which made Ieremias my tenant, and the only time I had met him was when he had dutifully come to the larger fortress to pay me rent. He had arrived with a dozen men, who he called his disciples, all of them mounted on stallions except for Ieremias himself, who straddled an ass. He wore a long grubby robe, had greasy white hair hanging to his waist, and a sly look of amusement on his thin, clever face. He had laid fifteen silver shillings on the grass, then hitched up his robe. ‘Behold,’ he announced grandly, then pissed on the coins. ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the other one,’ he said as he pissed, then grinned at me. ‘Your rent, lord, a little damp, but blessed by God Himself. See how they sparkle now? A miracle, yes?’

‘Wash them,’ I told him.

‘And your feet too, lord?’

So the crazy Ieremias wanted to build on Lindisfarena? ‘Did he ask my cousin’s permission?’ I asked Olla.

‘I wouldn’t know, lord. I haven’t seen Ieremias or his horrible ship for months.’

The horrible ship was called Guds Moder, a dark, untidy war vessel that Ieremias used to patrol the coast just beyond Gyruum. I shrugged. ‘Ieremias is no threat,’ I decided, ‘if he farts northwards then Constantin will crush him.’

‘Perhaps,’ Olla sounded dubious.

I stared at the river as it slid past the busy wharves, then watched a cat stalk along the rail of a moored ship before leaping down to hunt rats in the bilge. Olla was telling my son about the horse races that had to be postponed because Sigtryggr had led most of Eoferwic’s garrison south, but I was not listening, I was thinking. Plainly the permission to build the new monastery must have been given weeks ago, before even Constantin had led his invasion. How else would the archbishop have his piles of wood and masonry ready to be shipped?

‘When did Brunulf occupy Hornecastre?’ I asked, interrupting Olla’s enthusiastic account of a gelding he reckoned was the fastest horse in Northumbria.

‘Let me think,’ he frowned, pausing a few heartbeats, ‘must be the last new moon? Yes, it was.’

‘And the moon’s almost full,’ I said.

‘So …’ my son began, then went silent.

‘So the Scots invaded a few days ago!’ I said angrily. ‘Suppose Sigtryggr hadn’t been distracted by the West Saxons, what would he have done when he heard about Constantin?’

‘Marched north,’ my son said.

‘But he can’t, because the West Saxons are pissing all over his land to the south. They’re allied!’

‘The Scots and the West Saxons?’ my son sounded incredulous.

‘They made a secret treaty weeks ago! The Scots get Bebbanburg, and the West Saxon church gets Lindisfarena,’ I said, and I was sure I was right. ‘They get a new monastery, relics, pilgrims, silver. The Scots get land, and the church gets rich.’

I was sure I was right, though in fact I was wrong. Not that it mattered in the end.

Olla and my son were silent until my son shrugged. ‘So what do we do?’

‘We start killing,’ I said vengefully.

And next day we rode south.

‘No killing,’ my daughter said firmly.

I growled.

Sigtryggr was no longer in Lindcolne. He had left most of his army to defend the walls and had ridden with fifty men to Ledecestre, a burh he had ceded to Mercia, to plead with Æthelflaed. He wanted her to influence her brother, the King of Wessex, to withdraw his troops from Hornecastre.

‘The West Saxons want us to start a war,’ my daughter said. She had been left in command of Lindcolne, leading a garrison of almost four hundred men. She could have confronted Brunulf with that army, but she insisted on leaving the West Saxons undisturbed. ‘You probably outnumber the bastards in Hornecastre,’ I pointed out.

‘I probably don’t,’ she said patiently, ‘and there are hundreds more West Saxons waiting across the border, just looking for an excuse to invade us.’

And that was true. The Saxons in southern Britain wanted more than an excuse, they wanted everything. In my lifetime I had seen almost all of what is now called Englaland in Danish hands. The long ships had rowed up the rivers, piercing the land, and the warriors had conquered Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia. Their armies had overrun Wessex, and it had seemed inevitable that the country would be called Daneland, but fate had decreed otherwise and the West Saxons and Mercians had fought their way northwards, fought bitterly and suffered mightily, so that now only Sigtryggr’s Northumbria stood in their way. When Northumbria fell, and eventually it would, then all the folk who spoke the English tongue would live in one kingdom. Englaland.

The irony, of course, was that I had fought on the side of the Saxons all the way from the south coast to the edge of Northumbria, but now, thanks to my daughter’s marriage, I was their enemy. Such is fate! And fate now decreed that I was being told what to do by my daughter!

‘Whatever you do, father,’ she said strictly, ‘don’t stir them up! We haven’t confronted them, talked to them, or threatened them! We don’t want to provoke them!’

I looked across at her brother, who was playing with his nephew and niece. We were in a great Roman house built at the very summit of Lindcolne’s hill, and from the eastern edge of its wide garden we could see for miles across a sunlit country. Brunulf and his men were out there somewhere. My son, I thought, would like nothing better than to fight them. He was blunt, cheerful, and headstrong, while my daughter, so dark compared to her brother’s fair complexion, was subtle and secretive. She was clever too, like her mother, but that did not make her right.

‘You’re frightened of the West Saxons,’ I said.

‘I respect their strength.’

‘They’re bluffing,’ I said, and hoped I was right.

‘Bluffing?’

‘This isn’t an invasion,’ I said angrily, ‘it’s just a distraction! They wanted your armies in the south while Constantin attacks Bebbanburg. Brunulf isn’t going to attack you here! He doesn’t have enough men. He’s just here to keep you looking south while Constantin besieges Bebbanburg. They’re in league, don’t you see?’ I slapped the garden’s stone parapet. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

Stiorra knew I meant that I should be at Bebbanburg and touched my arm as if to soothe me. ‘You think you can fight your cousin and the Scots?’

‘I have to.’

‘You can’t, father, not without our army to help.’

‘All my life,’ I said bitterly, ‘I have dreamed of Bebbanburg. Dreamed of taking it back. Dreamed of dying there. And what have I done instead? Helped the Saxons conquer the land, helped the Christians! And how do they repay me? By allying themselves with my enemy.’ I turned on her, my voice savage. ‘You’re wrong!’

‘Wrong?’

‘The West Saxons won’t invade if we attack Brunulf. They’re not ready. They will be one day, but not yet.’ I had no idea if what I said was true, I was just trying to persuade myself it was the truth. ‘They need to be hurt, punished, killed. They need to be frightened.’

‘No, father,’ she was pleading now. ‘Wait to see what Sigtryggr agrees with the Mercians? Please?’

‘We’re not at war with the Mercians,’ I said.

She turned and gazed across the cloud-dappled hills. ‘You know,’ she said, quietly now, ‘that some West Saxons say we should never have made the peace. Half their Witan say Æthelflaed betrayed the Saxons because she loves you, the other half say the peace must be kept until they’re so strong that we’ll never resist them.’

‘So?’

‘So the men who want war are just waiting for a cause. They want us to attack. They want to force King Edward’s hand, and even your Æthelflaed won’t be able to resist the call to fight. We need time, father. Please. Leave them alone. They’ll go away. Go to Ledecestre. Help Sigtryggr there. Æthelflaed will listen to you.’

I thought about what she had said and decided she was probably right. The West Saxons, fresh from their triumph over East Anglia, were spoiling for a war, and it was a war I did not want. I wanted to drive the Scots from Bebbanburg’s land and to do that I needed Northumbria’s army, and Sigtryggr would only help me attack northwards if he was certain that he had peace with the southern Saxons. He had gone to Ledecestre to plead with Æthelflaed, hoping her influence with her brother would secure that peace, but despite my daughter’s urgent pleading my instinct said that the road to Bebbanburg lay through Hornecastre, not through Ledecestre. And I have always trusted instinct. It might defy reason and sense, but instinct is the prickle at the back of the neck that tells you danger is close. So I trust instinct.

So next day, despite all my daughter had said, I rode to Hornecastre.

Hornecastre was a bleak place, though the Romans had valued it enough to build a stone-walled fort just south of the River Beina. They had built no roads, so I assumed the fort had been made to guard against ships coming upriver, and those ships would have belonged to our ancestors, the first Saxons to cross the sea and take a new land. And it was good land, at least to the north where low hills provided rich pasture. Two Danish families and their slaves had settled in nearby steadings, though both had been told to leave as soon as the West Saxons occupied the ancient fort. ‘Why weren’t the Danes living in the fort?’ I asked Egil. He was a sober, middle-aged man with long plaited moustaches who had grown up not far from Hornecastre, though now he served in Lindcolne’s garrison as commander of the night watchmen. When the West Saxons had first occupied Hornecastre’s fort he had been sent with a small force to watch them, which he had done from a safe distance, until Sigtryggr’s caution had caused him to be summoned back again to Lindcolne. I had insisted that he return to Hornecastre with me. ‘If we assault the fort,’ I had told him, ‘it will help to have a man who knows it. I don’t. You do.’

‘A man called Torstein lived there,’ Egil said, ‘but he left.’

‘Why?’

‘It floods, lord. Torstein’s two sons were drowned in a flood, lord, and he reckoned the Saxons had put a curse on the place. So he left. There’s a stream this side of the fort, a big one, and the river beyond? And the walls on that far side have fallen in places. Not on this side, lord,’ we were watching from the north, ‘but on the southern and eastern sides.’

‘It looks formidable enough from here,’ I said. I was staring at the fort, seeing its stone ramparts rearing gaunt above an expanse of rushes. Two banners hung on poles above the northern wall and a sullen wind occasionally lifted one to reveal the dragon of Wessex. The second banner must have been made from heavier cloth because the wind did not stir it. ‘What does the left-hand banner show?’ I asked Egil.

‘We could never make it out, lord.’

I grunted, suspecting that Egil had never tried to get close enough to see that second banner. Smoke from cooking fires drifted up from the ramparts and from the fields to the south where, evidently, a part of Brunulf’s force was camped. ‘How many men are there?’ I asked.

‘Two hundred? Three?’ Egil sounded vague.

‘All warriors?’

‘They have some magicians with them, lord.’ He meant priests.

We were a long way off from the fort, though doubtless the men on its walls had seen us watching from the low hilltop. Most of my men were hidden in the shallow valley behind. ‘Is there anything there besides the fort?’

‘A few houses,’ Egil said dismissively.

‘And the Saxons haven’t tried to come further north?’

‘Not since the first week they were here, lord. Now they’re just sitting there.’ He scratched his beard, trying to pinch a louse. ‘Mind you,’ he went on, ‘they could have been roaming around, but we wouldn’t know. We were ordered to stay away from them, not to upset them.’

‘That was probably wise,’ I said, reflecting that I was about to do the very opposite.

‘So what do they want?’ Egil asked in an annoyed tone.

‘They want us to attack them,’ I said, but if Egil was right and the West Saxons could put two or three hundred men behind the stone walls, then we would need at least four hundred men to storm the ramparts, and for what? To possess the ruins of an old fort that no longer guarded anything of value? Brunulf, the West Saxon commander, would know that too, so why did he stay? ‘How did they get here?’ I asked. ‘By boat?’

‘They rode, lord.’

‘And they’re miles from the nearest West Saxon forces,’ I said, speaking more to myself than to Egil.

‘The nearest are at Steanford, lord.’

‘Which is how far?’

‘A half day’s ride, lord,’ he said vaguely, ‘maybe?’

I was riding Tintreg that day and I spurred him down the long slope, pushed through a hedge, across a ditch, and up the low rise beyond. I took Finan and a dozen men with me, leaving the rest hidden. If the West Saxons had a mind to chase us away then we would have no choice but to flee northwards, but they seemed content to watch from their walls as we drew closer. One of their priests joined the warriors on the ramparts and I saw him lift a cross and hold it in our direction. ‘He’s cursing us,’ I said, amused.

Eadric, a Saxon scout, touched the cross hanging about his neck, but said nothing. I was staring at a stretch of grassland just to the north of the fort. ‘Look at the pasture on this side of the stream,’ I said, ‘what do you see there?’

Eadric had eyes as good as Finan’s and he now stood in his stirrups, shaded his face with a hand and stared. ‘Graves?’ he sounded puzzled.

‘They’re digging something,’ Finan said. There seemed to be several mounds of freshly-turned earth.

‘You want me to look, lord?’ Eadric asked.

‘We all will,’ I said.

We rode slowly towards the fort, leaving our shields behind as a sign we did not want battle, and for a time it seemed the West Saxons were content just to watch as we explored the pasture on our side of the river where I could see the mysterious heaps of earth. As we rode closer I saw that the mounds had not been excavated from graves, but from trenches. ‘Are they building a new fort?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘They’re building something,’ Finan said.

‘Lord,’ Eadric said warningly, but I had already seen the dozen horsemen leave the fort and ride to where a ford crossed the stream.

We numbered fourteen men, and Brunulf, if he was trying to avoid trouble, would bring the same number, and so he did, but when the horsemen were in the centre of the stream where the placid water almost reached up to their horses’ bellies, they all stopped. They bunched there, ignoring us, and it seemed to me that they argued, and then, unexpectedly, two men turned and rode back to the fort. We were at the pasture’s edge by then, the grass lush from the recent rain, and as I spurred Tintreg forward I saw it was no fort they were making, nor graves, but a church. The trench had been dug in the form of a cross. It was meant to be the building’s foundation and it would eventually be half filled with stone to support the wall pillars. ‘It’s big!’ I said, impressed.

‘Big as the church in Wintanceaster!’ Finan said, equally impressed.

The dozen remaining emissaries from the fort were now spurring from the river. Eight were warriors like us, the rest were churchmen, two priests in black robes, and a pair of monks in brown. The warriors wore no helmets, carried no shields, and, apart from their sheathed swords, no weapons. Their leader, on an impressive grey stallion that stepped high through the long grass, wore a dark robe edged with fur above a leather breastplate over which hung a silver cross. He was a young man with a grave face, a short beard, and a high forehead beneath a woollen cap. He reined in his restless horse, then looked at me in silence as if expecting me to speak first. I did not.

‘I am Brunulf Torkelson of Wessex,’ he finally said. ‘And who are you?’

‘You’re Torkel Brunulfson’s son?’ I asked.

He looked surprised at the question, then pleased. He nodded. ‘I am, lord.’

‘Your father fought beside me at Ethandun,’ I said, ‘and fought well! He slew Danes that day. Does he still live?’

‘He does.’

‘Give him my warm greeting.’

He hesitated and I sensed he wanted to thank me, but there was a pretence that had to be spoken first. ‘And whose greeting is that?’ he asked.

I half smiled, looking along the line of his men. ‘You know who I am, Brunulf,’ I said. ‘You called me “lord”, so don’t pretend you don’t know me.’ I pointed at the oldest of his warriors, a grizzled man with a scar across his forehead. ‘You fought beside me at Fearnhamme. Am I right?’

The man grinned, ‘I did, lord.’

‘You served Steapa, yes?’

‘Yes, lord.’

‘So tell Brunulf who I am.’

‘He’s …’

‘I do know who he is,’ Brunulf interrupted, then gave me a slight nod of his head. ‘It is an honour to meet you, lord.’ Those words, spoken courteously, caused the eldest of the two priests to spit on the grass. Brunulf ignored the insult. ‘And may I ask what brings Uhtred of Bebbanburg to this poor place?’

‘I was about to ask what brought you here,’ I retorted.

‘You have no business here,’ it was the spitting priest who spoke. He was a strongly built man, broad-chested, older than Brunulf by perhaps ten or fifteen years, with a fierce face, short-cropped black hair, and an undeniable air of authority. His black robe was made of finely woven wool, and the cross on his chest was of gold. The second priest was a much smaller man, younger, and plainly very nervous of our presence.

I looked at the older priest. ‘And who are you?’ I demanded.

‘A man doing God’s business.’

‘You know my name,’ I said mildly, ‘but do you know what they call me?’

‘Satan’s earsling,’ he snarled.

‘Perhaps they do,’ I said, ‘but they also call me the priest-killer, but it’s been many years since I last slit the belly of an arrogant priest. I need the practice.’ I smiled at him.

Brunulf held up a hand to check whatever retort was about to be made. ‘Father Herefrith fears you are trespassing, Lord Uhtred.’ Brunulf, plainly, was not looking for a fight. His tone was courteous.

‘How can a man trespass on his own king’s land?’ I asked.

‘This land,’ Brunulf said, ‘belongs to Edward of Wessex.’

I laughed at that. It was a brazen statement, as outrageous as Constantin’s claim that all the land north of the wall belonged to the Scots. ‘This land,’ I said, ‘is a half-day’s ride north of the frontier.’

‘There is proof of our claim,’ Father Herefrith said. His voice was a deep, hostile growl, and his gaze even more unfriendly. I guessed he had been a warrior once, he had scars on one cheek, and his dark eyes betrayed no fear, only challenge. He was big, but it was all muscle, the kind of muscle a man develops from years of practising sword-skill. I noticed that he stood his horse apart from the rest of Brunulf’s followers, even from his fellow priest, as if he despised their company.

‘Proof,’ I said scornfully.

‘Proof!’ he spat back. ‘Though we need prove nothing to you. You’re shit from the devil’s arse and you trespass on King Edward’s land.’

‘Father Herefrith,’ Brunulf seemed disturbed by the older priest’s belligerence, ‘is a chaplain to King Edward.’

‘Father Herefrith,’ I said, keeping my voice mild, ‘was born from a sow’s arsehole.’

Herefrith just stared at me. I had been told once that there is a tribe of men far beyond the seas who can kill with a look, and it seemed as if the big priest was trying to emulate them. I looked away from him before it became a contest, and saw that the second banner, the one that had not stretched in the small wind, had now been taken down from the fort’s ramparts. I wondered if a war party was assembling to follow that banner to our destruction. ‘Your royal chaplain, born of a sow,’ I spoke to Brunulf, though I was still watching the fort, ‘says he has proof. What proof?’

‘Father Stepan?’ Brunulf passed my question to the nervous younger priest.

‘In the year of our lord 875,’ the second priest answered in a high, unsteady voice, ‘King Ælla of Northumbria ceded this land in perpetuity to King Oswald of East Anglia. King Edward is now the ruler of East Anglia and thus is the true and rightful inheritor of the gift.’

I looked at Brunulf and had the impression that here was an honest man, certainly a man who did not look convinced by the priest’s statement. ‘In the year of Thor 875,’ I said, ‘Ælla was under siege from a rival, and Oswald wasn’t even the King of East Anglia, he was a puppet for Ubba.’

‘Nevertheless—’ the older priest insisted, but stopped when I interrupted him.

‘Ubba the Horrible,’ I said, staring into his eyes, ‘who I killed beside the sea.’

‘Nevertheless,’ he spoke loudly as if challenging me to interrupt him again, ‘the grant was made, the charter written, the seals impressed, and the land so given.’ He looked to Father Stepan, ‘is that not so?’

‘It is so,’ Father Stepan squeaked.

Herefrith glared at me, trying to kill with his eyes. ‘You are trespassing on King Edward’s land, earsling.’

Brunulf flinched at the insult. I did not care. ‘You can produce this so-called charter?’ I asked.

For a moment no one answered, then Brunulf looked at the younger priest. ‘Father Stepan?’

‘Why prove anything to this sinner?’ Herefrith demanded angrily. He spurred his horse forward a pace. ‘He is a priest-killer, hated by God, married to his Saxon whore, spewing the devil’s filth.’

I sensed my men stirring behind me and raised a hand to calm them. I ignored Father Herefrith and looked at the younger priest instead. ‘Charters are easy to forge,’ I said, ‘so entertain me and tell me why the land was given.’

Father Stepan glanced at Father Herefrith as if looking for permission to speak, but the older priest ignored him.

‘Tell me!’ I insisted.

‘In the year of our lord 632,’ Father Stepan said nervously, ‘Saint Erpenwald of the Wuffingas came to this river. It was in flood and could not be crossed, but he prayed to the Lord, struck the river with his staff, and the waters parted.’

‘It was a miracle,’ Brunulf explained a little shamefacedly.

‘Strange,’ I said, ‘that I never heard that tale before. I grew up in Northumbria, and you’d think a northern lad like me would have heard a marvellous story like that. I know about the puffins that sang psalms, and the holy toddler who cured his mother’s lameness by spitting on her left tit, but a man who didn’t need a bridge to cross a river? I never heard that tale!’

‘Six months ago,’ Father Stepan continued, as if I had not spoken, ‘Saint Erpenwald’s staff was discovered on the river bed.’

‘Still there after two hundred years!’

‘Much longer!’ one of the monks put in, and received a glare from Father Herefrith.

‘And it hadn’t floated away?’ I asked, pretending to be amazed.

‘King Edward wishes to make this a place of pilgrimage,’ Father Stepan said, again ignoring my mockery.

‘So he sends warriors,’ I said menacingly.

‘When the church is built,’ Brunulf said earnestly, ‘the troops will withdraw. They are here only to protect the holy fathers and to help construct the shrine.’

‘True,’ Father Stepan added eagerly.

They were telling lies. I reckoned their reason to be here was not to build some church, but to distract Sigtryggr while Constantin stole the northern part of Northumbria, and perhaps to provoke a second war by goading Sigtryggr into an assault on the fort. But why, if that is what they wanted, had they been so unprovocative? True, Father Herefrith had been hostile, but I suspected he was a bitter and angry priest who did not know how to be courteous. Brunulf and the rest of his company had been meek, trying to placate me. If they wanted to provoke a war they would have defied me and they had not, so I decided to push them. ‘You claim this field is King Edward’s land,’ I said, ‘but to reach it you must have travelled over King Sigtryggr’s land.’

‘We did, of course,’ Brunulf agreed hesitantly.

‘Then you owe him customs’ dues,’ I said. ‘I assume you brought tools?’ I nodded at the cross-shaped trenches. ‘Spades? Mattocks? Even timber to build your magic shrine perhaps?’

For a heartbeat there was no answer. Brunulf, I saw, glanced at Father Herefrith, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘That’s not unreasonable,’ Brunulf said nervously. For a man planning a war, or trying to provoke one, it was an astonishing concession.

‘We will think on the matter,’ Father Herefrith said harshly, ‘and give you our answer in two days.’

My immediate impulse was to argue, to demand we meet the next day, but there was something strange about Herefrith’s sudden change of attitude. Till this moment he had been hostile and obstructive, and now, though still hostile, he was cooperating with Brunulf. It was Herefrith who had given the signal that Brunulf should pretend to agree about paying customs’ dues, and Herefrith who had insisted on waiting for two days, and so I resisted my urge to argue. ‘We will meet you here in two days,’ I agreed instead, ‘and make sure you bring gold to that meeting.’

‘Not here,’ Father Herefrith said sharply.

‘No?’ I responded mildly.

‘The stench of your presence fouls God’s holy land,’ he snarled, then pointed northwards. ‘You see the woodland on the skyline? Just beyond it there’s a stone, a pagan stone.’ He spat the last three words. ‘We shall meet you by the stone at mid morning on Wednesday. You can bring twelve men. No more.’

Again I had to resist the urge to anger him. Instead I nodded agreement. ‘Twelve of us,’ I said, ‘at mid morning, in two days’ time, at the stone. And make sure you bring your fake charter and plenty of gold.’

‘I’ll bring you an answer, pagan,’ Herefrith said, then turned and spurred away.

‘We shall meet in two days, lord,’ Brunulf said, plainly embarrassed by the priest’s anger.

I just nodded and watched as they all rode back to the fort.

Finan watched too. ‘That sour priest will never pay,’ he said, ‘he wouldn’t pay for a morsel of bread if his own poor mother was starving.’

‘He will pay,’ I said.

But not in gold. The payment, I knew, would be in blood. In two days’ time.