Читать книгу The Empty Throne - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 8

My name is Uhtred. I am the son of Uhtred, who was the son of Uhtred, and his father was also called Uhtred. My father wrote his name thus, Uhtred, but I have seen the name written as Utred, Ughtred or even Ootred. Some of those names are on ancient parchments which declare that Uhtred, son of Uhtred and grandson of Uhtred, is the lawful, sole and eternal owner of the lands that are carefully marked by stones and by dykes, by oaks and by ash, by marsh and by sea. That land is in the north of the country we have learned to call Englaland. They are wave-beaten lands beneath a wind-driven sky. It is the land we call Bebbanburg.

I did not see Bebbanburg till I was grown, and the first time we attacked its high walls we failed. My father’s cousin ruled the great fortress then. His father had stolen it from my father. It was a bloodfeud. The church tried to stop the feud, saying the enemy of all Saxon Christians was the pagan Northmen, whether Danish or Norse, but my father swore me to the feud. If I had refused the oath he would have disinherited me, just as he disinherited and disowned my older brother, not because my brother would not pursue the feud, but because he became a Christian priest. I was once named Osbert, but when my elder brother became a priest I was given his name. My name is Uhtred of Bebbanburg.

My father was a pagan, a warlord, and frightening. He often told me he was frightened of his own father, but I cannot believe it because nothing seemed to frighten him. Many folk claim that our country would be called Daneland and we would all be worshipping Thor and Woden if it had not been for my father, and that is true. True and strange because he hated the Christian god, calling him ‘the nailed god’, yet despite his hatred he spent the greatest part of his life fighting against the pagans. The church will not admit that Englaland exists because of my father, claiming that it was made and won by Christian warriors, but the folk of Englaland know the truth. My father should have been called Uhtred of Englaland.

Yet in the year of our Lord 911 there was no Englaland. There was Wessex and Mercia and East Anglia and Northumbria, and as the winter turned to a sullen spring in that year I was on the border of Mercia and Northumbria in thickly wooded country north of the River Mærse. There were thirty-eight of us, all well mounted and all waiting among the winter-bare branches of a high wood. Beneath us was a valley in which a small fast stream flowed south, and where frost lingered in deep-shadowed gullies. The valley was empty, though just moments before some sixty-five riders had followed the stream southwards and then vanished where the valley and its stream turned sharply west. ‘Not long now,’ Rædwald said.

That was just nervousness and I made no answer. I was nervous too, but tried not to show it. Instead I imagined what my father would have done. He would have been hunched in the saddle, glowering and motionless, and so I hunched in my saddle and stared fixedly into the valley. I touched the hilt of my sword.

She was called Raven-Beak. I suppose she had another name before that because she had belonged to Sigurd Thorrson, and he must have given her a name though I never did find out what it was. At first I thought the sword was called Vlfberht because that strange name was inscribed on the blade in big letters. It looked like this:

But Finan, my father’s friend, told me that Vlfberht is the name of the Frankish smith who made her, and that he makes the finest and most expensive blades in all Christendom, and it must be Christendom because Vlfberht puts the crosses in front of and inside his name. I asked Finan how we could find Vlfberht to buy more swords, but Finan says he is a magic smith who works in secret. A blacksmith will leave his furnace for the night and return in the morning to find that Vlfberht has been in the smithy and left a sword forged in the fires of hell and quenched with dragon’s blood. I called her Raven-Beak because Sigurd’s banner had shown a raven. She had been the sword Sigurd carried when he fought me and when my seax had ripped his belly open. I remember that sword-stroke so well, remember the resistance of his fine mail suddenly giving way and the look in his eyes as he realised he was dying and the elation I felt as I dragged the seax sideways to empty his lifeblood. That had happened in the previous year at the battle at Teotanheale which had driven the Danes out of central Mercia, the same battle in which my father had killed Cnut Ranulfson, but in killing Cnut he had been wounded by Cnut’s sword, Ice-Spite.

Raven-Beak was a good sword, I thought her even better than Serpent-Breath, my father’s blade. She was long-bladed, but surprisingly light, and other swords broke against her edge. She was a warrior’s sword, and I carried her that day in the high wood above the frosted valley where the stream ran so fast. I carried Raven-Beak and my seax, Attor. Attor means venom and she was a short-sword, good for the crowded work of a shield wall. She stung, and it was her venom that had killed Sigurd. And I carried my round shield on which was painted the wolf’s head, the emblem of our family. I wore a helmet crested with a wolf’s head, and a coat of Frankish mail above a leather jerkin, and above it all a cloak of bear fur. I am Uhtred Uhtredson, the true lord of Bebbanburg, and I was nervous that day.

I led the war-band. I was just twenty-one years old and some of the men behind me were almost twice my age with many times my experience, but I was the son of Uhtred, a lord, and so I commanded. Most of the men were well back among the trees, only Rædwald and Sihtric were with me. Both were older, and both had been sent to offer me advice or, rather, to keep me from headstrong stupidity. I had known Sihtric for ever, he was one of my father’s trusted men, while Rædwald was a warrior in the service of the Lady Æthelflaed. ‘Maybe they’re not coming,’ he said. He was a steady man, cautious and careful, and I half suspected he hoped the enemy would not appear.

‘They’re coming,’ Sihtric grunted.

And they did come. They came hurrying from the north, a band of horsemen with shields, spears, axes and swords. Norsemen. I leaned forward in the saddle, trying to count the riders who spurred beside the stream. Three crews? At least one hundred men, and Haki Grimmson was among them, or at least his banner of a ship was there.

‘One hundred and twenty,’ Sihtric said.

‘More,’ Rædwald said.

‘One hundred and twenty,’ Sihtric insisted flatly.

One hundred and twenty horsemen pursuing the sixty-five who had ridden through the valley some moments before. One hundred and twenty men following Haki Grimmson’s banner that was supposed to show a red ship on a white sea, though the red dye of the wool had faded to brown and stained the white sea so that it seemed as if the high-prowed ship was bleeding. The standard-bearer was riding behind a big man on a powerful black horse and I assumed that big man was Haki. He was a Norseman who had settled in Ireland, from where he had crossed to Britain and found land north of the River Mærse and thought to make himself rich by raiding southwards into Mercia. He had taken slaves, cattle, and property, he had even assaulted the Roman walls of Ceaster, though that assault had been beaten off easily enough by the Lady Æthelflaed’s garrison. He was, in short, a nuisance, and that was why we were north of the Mærse, concealed among winter-bare trees and watching his war-band pound south on the frost-hardened track beside the stream.

‘We should …’ Rædwald began.

‘Not yet,’ I interrupted him. I touched Raven-Beak, making sure she moved in her scabbard.

‘Not yet,’ Sihtric agreed.

‘Godric!’ I called, and my servant, a twelve-year-old boy named Godric Grindanson, spurred from where my men waited. ‘Spear,’ I said.

‘Lord,’ he said, and handed me the nine-foot-long ash pole with the heavy iron spearhead.

‘You ride behind us,’ I told Godric, ‘well behind us. You have the horn?’

‘Yes, lord.’ He held up the horn to show me. The sound of the horn would summon help from the sixty-five riders if things went wrong, though I doubted they could offer any real help if my small war-band was attacked by Haki’s grim horsemen.

‘If they’ve dismounted,’ Sihtric spoke to the boy, ‘you help drive their horses away.’

‘I should stay close to …’ Godric began, plainly about to plead that he should stay by my side and so join the fight, but he stopped abruptly when Sihtric backhanded him across the face.

‘You help drive the horses away,’ Sihtric snarled.

‘I will,’ the boy said. His lip was bleeding.

Sihtric loosened the sword in his scabbard. As a boy he had been my father’s servant, and doubtless he had wanted to fight alongside the grown men back then, but there was no quicker way for a boy to die than trying to fight a battle-hardened Norseman. ‘Are we ready?’ he prompted me.

‘Let’s go and kill the bastards,’ I said.

Haki’s war-band had turned west and ridden out of sight. They were following the stream that flowed into a tributary of the Mærse some two miles beyond the valley’s sharp westwards turn. There was a small hill where the two streams joined, nothing more than a long grassy mound like the graves the old people placed all across the land, and that was where Haki would die or be defeated, which, in the end, amounted to the same thing.

We spurred down the hill, though I was in no hurry because I did not want Haki’s men to look behind and see us. We reached the stream and turned south. We did not hurry, indeed I slowed down as Sihtric rode ahead to scout. I watched as he dismounted and as he found a place from where he could see westwards. He was crouching and holding up one hand to caution us, and it was some time before he ran back to his horse and waved us on. He grinned at me when we joined him. ‘They stopped a ways down the valley,’ he said, his voice sibilant because a Danish spear had taken his front teeth at the battle at Teotanheale, ‘then unslung their shields.’ They had ridden beneath us with their shields strapped on their backs, but Haki obviously expected trouble where the valley ended and so had taken the time for his men to prepare for a fight. Our shields were already on our arms.

‘They’ll dismount when they reach the valley’s end,’ I said.

‘Then form a shield wall,’ Sihtric said.

‘So there’s no hurry,’ I finished the thought and grinned.

‘They might hurry,’ Rædwald suggested. He was worried that the fight would start without us.

I shook my head. ‘There are sixty-five Saxons waiting for them,’ I told him, ‘and Haki might outnumber them, but he’ll still be cautious.’ The Norseman would have almost twice as many warriors as the waiting Saxons, but those Saxons were on a hill and already formed into a shield wall. Haki would have to dismount his troops a good distance away so he was not attacked while his men formed their own shield wall, and only when they were formed and when the horses were safely led away would he advance, and that advance would be slow. It takes immense courage to fight in the shield wall when you can smell your enemy’s breath and the blades are falling and stabbing. He would advance slowly, confident in his numbers but careful in case the waiting Saxons had laid a trap. Haki could not afford to lose men. He might reckon he could win the fight where the stream joined the larger river, but he would still be cautious.

The Irish Norse were spreading into Britain. Finan, my father’s companion, claimed that the Irish tribesmen were too formidable an enemy, and so the Norse were being pinned to Ireland’s eastern coast. Yet on this side of the sea, the land north of the Mærse and south of the Scottish kingdoms was wild land, untamed, and so their ships crossed the waves to settle in the valleys of Cumbraland. Cumbraland was properly a part of Northumbria, but the Danish king in Eoferwic welcomed the newcomers. The Danes feared the growing power of the Saxons, and the Irish Norse were savage fighters who could help defend Danish-held land. Haki was merely the last to arrive, and he had thought to enrich himself at Mercia’s expense, which is why we had been sent to destroy him. ‘Remember!’ I called to my men. ‘Only one of them is to survive!’

Leave one alive, that had always been my father’s advice. Let one man take the bad news home to frighten the others, though I suspected all Haki’s men were here, which meant the survivor, if there was one, would take the news of the defeat to widows and orphans. The priests tell us to love our enemies, but to show them no mercy, and Haki had earned none. He had raided the lands around Ceaster and the garrison there, sufficient to hold the walls, but not sufficient to hold the walls and send a war-band across the Mærse at the same time, had appealed for help. We were the help, and now we rode westwards beside the stream, which grew wider and shallower, no longer hurrying over rocks. Stunted alders grew thick, their bare branches bent eastwards by the unending wind from the far sea. We passed a burned farmstead, nothing left there now except the blackened stones of a hearth. It had been the southernmost of Haki’s steadings and the first we had attacked. In the two weeks since we had come to Ceaster we had burned a dozen of his settlements, taken scores of his cattle, killed his people and enslaved his children. Now he thought he had us trapped.

My stallion’s motion made the heavy golden cross that hung about my neck beat against my chest. I looked southwards to where the sun was a clouded silver disc in a fading sky and I sent a silent prayer to Woden. I am half a pagan, maybe less than half, but even my father had been known to say a prayer to the Christian god. ‘There are many gods,’ he had told me so often, ‘and you never know which one of them is awake, so pray to them all.’

So I prayed to Woden. I am of your blood, I told him, so protect me, and I was indeed of his blood because our family is descended from Woden. He had come to earth and slept with a human girl, but that was long before our people crossed the sea to take Britain. ‘He didn’t sleep with a girl,’ I could hear my father’s scorn as I rode, ‘he gave her a good humping, and you don’t sleep through that.’ I wondered why the gods no longer came to earth. It would make belief so much easier.

‘Not so fast!’ Sihtric called, and I stopped thinking about gods humping girls to see that three of our younger men had spurred ahead. ‘Fall back,’ Sihtric called, then grinned at me. ‘Not far, lord.’

‘We should scout,’ Rædwald advised.

‘They’ve had long enough,’ I said, ‘keep riding.’

I knew Haki would dismount his men to attack the waiting shield wall. Horses will not charge home into a shield wall, instead they will sheer aside, so Haki’s men would form their own shield wall to attack the Saxons who were waiting on the long low mound. But we would come from their rear, and horses will charge into the back of a shield wall which is never as tight as the front rank. The front rank is a wall of locked shields and bright weapons, the rear rank is where the panic starts.

We turned slightly northwards, clearing the spur of a hill, and there they were. The sun slanted bright from a gap in the clouds to light the Christian banners on the hilltop and glint from the blades waiting there. Sixty-five men, just sixty-five, a tight shield wall of two ranks on the hill crest beneath the cross-blazoned flags, and between them and us was Haki’s shield wall, still forming, and nearest to us and off to our right were his horses under the guard of boys. ‘Rædwald,’ I said, ‘three men to drive the horses off.’

‘Lord,’ he acknowledged.

‘Go with them, Godric!’ I called to my servant, then hefted the heavy ash-shafted spear. The Norsemen had still not seen us. All they knew was that a raiding party of Mercians had penetrated deep into Haki’s territory and the Norsemen had pursued them, thinking to slaughter them, but now they would find they had been lured into a trap. ‘Kill them!’ I shouted and put my spurs back.

Kill them. This is what the poets sing about. At night, in the hall, when the hearth smoke thickens about the beams and the ale-horns are filled and the harpist plucks his strings, the songs of battle are sung. They are the songs of our family, of our people, and it is how we remember the past. We call a poet a scop and scop means someone who shapes things and a poet shapes our past so we remember the glories of our ancestors and how they brought us land and women and cattle and glory. There would be no Norse song of Haki, I thought, because this would be a Saxon song about a Saxon victory.

And we charged. Spear held tight, shield close, and Hearding, my horse, brave beast, was pounding the earth with hard hooves, and to my left and right the horses galloped, the spears held low, horse breath steaming, and the enemy turned, astonished, and the men at the rear of their shield wall did not know what to do. Some ran towards their horses and others tried to make a new shield wall to face us and I saw the gaps opening and knew they were dead men already. Beyond them, on the mound, the waiting Saxon warriors were fetching their own horses, but we would start the slaughter.

And we did.

I fixed my eyes on a tall, black-bearded man wearing fine mail and a helmet crested with eagle feathers. He was shouting, presumably to call men to lock their shields with his own shield that was painted with a spread eagle, but he saw my gaze, knew his fate and braced himself with his eagle-shield raised and his sword drawn back, and I knew he would strike at Hearding, hoping to blind my horse or shatter his teeth. Always fight the horse, not the rider. Wound or kill the horse and the rider becomes a victim, and the shield wall was breaking, scattering in panic, and I heard the shouts as men tried to rally the fugitives and I leaned into my spear, aiming her, then touched Hearding with my left knee and he swerved as the black-bearded man swung. His sword cut across Hearding’s chest, a savage enough cut that drew blood, but it was not a killing blow, not a crippling cut, and my spear went through his shield, splintering the willow boards and thrusting on to break his mail. I felt her blade shatter his breast-bone and I let the ash shaft go and drew Raven-Beak and turned Hearding back to drive Raven-Beak’s blade into another man’s spine. The blade, made by a sorcerer, broke through mail as if it was tree bark. Hearding crashed between two men, spilling them both to the ground and we turned again, and the whole field was a chaos of panicked men among whom the riders spurred to kill, and more riders came from the mound, our whole force killing and shouting, and above us the banners waved. ‘Merewalh!’ a high voice called sharply. ‘Stop the horses.’

A handful of Norsemen had reached their horses, but Merewalh, a hard warrior, led men to kill them. Haki still lived, surrounded now by thirty or forty of his men, who had formed a shield barrier about their lord, and those men could only watch as their comrades were cut down. But some of our men were down too. I could see three riderless horses and one dying horse, its hooves beating as it lay in a mess of blood. I turned towards it and cut down at a man who had just struggled to his feet. He was dazed and I dazed him more with a slash across his helmet and he went down again, and a man bellowed from my left, swinging an axe two-handed, and Hearding twisted, lithe as a cat, and the axe-blade glanced from my shield, we turned again and Raven-Beak sliced once and I saw the blood bright. I was shouting, exhilarated, screaming my name so that the dead would know who had sent them to their doom.

I spurred on, sword low, looking for the white horse called Gast and saw him fifty or sixty paces away. His rider, sword in hand, was spurring towards Haki’s shield-guarded remnant, but three other horses swerved into Gast’s path to check his rider. Then I had to forget Gast because a man swung a sword at me with an overhead slash. The man had lost his helmet, and half his face was smothered with blood. I could see more blood seeping at his waist, but he was grim-faced, hard-eyed, battle-forged, and he bellowed death at me as he swung, and I met the sword with Raven-Beak and she split his blade in two so that the upper half speared into my saddle’s pommel and stayed there. The lower half tore a gash in my right boot and I felt the blood welling as the man stumbled. I thrust Raven-Beak down to shatter his skull and rode on to see Gerbruht had dismounted and was thrashing an axe at a dead or nearly dead man. Gerbruht had already disembowelled his victim, now he seemed intent on separating flesh from bone and was screaming in rage as he slashed the heavy blade down to spatter gobbets of flesh, blood, shattered mail and splintered bone onto the grass.

‘What are you doing?’ I shouted at him.

‘He called me fat!’ Gerbruht, a Frisian who had joined our war-band during the winter, shouted back. ‘The bastard called me fat!’

‘You are fat,’ I pointed out and that was true. Gerbruht had a belly like a pig and legs like tree trunks and three chins under his beard, but he was also hugely strong. A fearful man to face in a fight and a good friend to have beside you in the shield wall.

‘He won’t call me fat again,’ Gerbruht snarled and drove the axe into the dead man’s skull, splitting the face and opening up the brain. ‘Skinny bastard.’

‘You eat too much,’ I said.

‘I’m always hungry, that’s why.’

I turned my horse to see that the fight was over. Haki and his shield companions still lived, but they were outnumbered and surrounded. Our Saxons were dismounting to kill the wounded and strip the corpses of mail, weapons, silver and gold. Like all the Northmen, these warriors liked arm rings to boast of their prowess in battle, and we piled the rings, along with brooches, scabbard decorations and neck chains onto a sword-ripped, blood-soaked cloak. I took one arm ring from the corpse of the black-bearded man. It was a chunk of gold, incised with the angular letters the Norsemen use, and I slipped it over my left wrist to join my other rings. Sihtric was grinning. He had a prisoner, a scared boy who was almost a man. ‘Our one survivor, lord,’ Sihtric said.

‘He’ll do,’ I said. ‘Cut off his sword hand and give him a horse. Then he can go.’

Haki watched us. I rode close to the remaining Norsemen and stopped to stare at him. He was a squat, scar-faced man with a brown beard. His helmet had come off in the fight and his straggly hair was dark with blood. His ears stood out like jug handles. He stared back, defiant. Thor’s hammer, shaped in gold, hung at his mail-clad chest. I counted twenty-seven men around him. They made a tight circle, shields outwards. ‘Become a Christian,’ I called to him in Danish, ‘and you might live.’

He understood me, though I doubted Danish was his language. He laughed at my suggestion, then spat. I was not even sure I had told him the truth, though many defeated enemies were spared if they agreed to conversion and baptism. The decision was not mine to make, it belonged to the rider mounted on the tall white horse called Gast. I turned towards the ring of horsemen who now surrounded Haki and his survivors, and the rider of the white horse looked past me. ‘Take Haki alive, kill the rest.’

It did not take long. Most of the bravest Norsemen were already dead and only a handful of experienced fighters were with Haki, the rest of them were youngsters, many of whom shouted that they surrendered, only to be cut down. I watched. Merewalh, a good man who had deserted Lord Æthelred’s service to follow Æthelflaed, led the attack, and it was Merewalh who dragged Haki out of the bloody heap, stripped him of his sword and shield, and forced him to his knees in front of the white horse.

Haki looked up. The sun was low in the west so that it was behind Gast’s rider and thus dazzling Haki, but he sensed the hatred and scorn that looked down on him. He shifted his head till his eyes were in the rider’s shadow, so now, perhaps, he could see the polished Frankish mail, scrubbed with sand till it shone like silver. He could see the white woollen cloak, edged with a weasel’s silky, white winter fur. He could see the tall boots, bound in white cord, and the long sword scabbard dressed with polished silver, and, if he dared raise his eyes higher, the hard blue eyes in the hard face framed by golden hair held by a helmet polished to the same high sheen as the mail. The helmet was ringed with a silver band and had a silver cross on the crown. ‘Take the mail from him,’ the white-clothed rider on the white horse said.

‘Yes, my lady,’ Merewalh said.

The lady was Æthelflaed, daughter of Alfred who had been King of Wessex. She was married to Æthelred, the Lord of Mercia, but everyone in Wessex and in Mercia knew she had been my father’s lover for years. It was Æthelflaed who had brought her men north to reinforce Ceaster’s garrison, and Æthelflaed who had devised the trap that now had Haki on his knees in front of her horse.

She looked at me. ‘You did well,’ she said, almost grudgingly.

‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said.

‘You’ll take him south,’ she said, gesturing at Haki. ‘He can die in Gleawecestre.’

I thought that a strange decision. Why not let him die here on the pale winter grass? ‘You will not go back south, my lady?’ I asked her.

It was plain she thought the question impertinent, but she answered anyway. ‘I have much to do here. You will take him.’ She held up a gloved hand to stop me as I turned away. ‘Make sure you arrive before Saint Cuthbert’s Day. You hear me?’

I bowed for answer, then we tied Haki’s hands behind his back, mounted him on a poor horse, and rode back to Ceaster where we arrived after dark. We had left the Norsemen’s bodies where they fell, food for ravens, but we carried our own dead with us, just five men. We took all the Norse horses and loaded them with captured weapons, with mail, with clothes and with shields. We rode back victorious, carrying Haki’s captured banner and following Lord Æthelred’s standard of the white horse, the banner of Saint Oswald, and Æthelflaed’s strange flag which showed a white goose holding a sword and a cross. The goose was the symbol of Saint Werburgh, a holy woman who had miraculously rid a cornfield of marauding geese, though it was beyond my wits to understand why a job any ten-year-old could have done with a loud voice was considered a miracle. Even a three-legged dog could have rid the field of geese, but that was not a comment I would have dared make to Æthelflaed, who held the goose-frightening saint in the highest regard.

The burh at Ceaster had been built by the Romans so the ramparts were of stone, unlike the burhs we Saxons built that had walls of earth and timber. We passed under the high fighting platform of the gateway, threading a tunnel lit by torches and so into the main street that ran arrow straight between high stone buildings. The sound of horses’ hooves echoed from the walls, then the bells of Saint Peter’s church rang out to celebrate Æthelflaed’s return.

Æthelflaed and most of her men went to the church to give thanks for the victory before gathering in the great hall that stood at the centre of Ceaster’s streets. Sihtric and I put Haki into a small stone hut, leaving his hands tied for the night. ‘I have gold,’ he said in Danish.

‘You’ll have straw for a bed and piss for ale,’ Sihtric told him, then we shut the door and left two men to guard him. ‘So we’re off to Gleawecestre?’ Sihtric said to me as we went to the hall.

‘So she says.’

‘You’ll be happy then.’

‘Me?’

He grinned toothlessly. ‘The redhead at the Wheatsheaf.’

‘One of many, Sihtric,’ I said airily, ‘one of many.’

‘And your girl in the farm near Cirrenceastre too,’ he added.

‘She is a widow,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster, ‘and I’m told it’s our Christian duty to protect widows.’

‘You call that protecting her?’ he laughed. ‘Are you going to marry her?’

‘Of course not. I’ll marry for land.’

‘You should be married,’ he said. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-one, I think.’

‘Should be long married, then,’ he said. ‘What about Ælfwynn?’

‘What about her?’ I asked.

‘She’s a pretty little mare,’ Sihtric said, ‘and I dare say she knows how to gallop.’ He pushed open the heavy door and we walked into the hall that was lit by rushlights and by a huge fire in a crude stone hearth that had cracked the Roman floor. There were not enough tables for both the burh’s garrison and for the men Æthelflaed had brought north, so some ate squatting on the floor, though I was given a place at the high table close to Æthelflaed. She was flanked by two priests, one of whom intoned a long prayer in Latin before we were allowed to start on the food.

I was scared of Æthelflaed. She had a hard face, though men said she had been beautiful as a young woman. In that year, 911, she must have been forty or more years old, and her hair, which was golden, had pale grey streaks. She had very blue eyes and a gaze that could unsettle the bravest of men. That gaze was cold and thoughtful, as if she was were reading your thoughts and despising them. I was not the only person who was scared of Æthelflaed. Her own daughter, Ælfwynn, would hide from her mother. I liked Ælfwynn, who was full of laughter and mischief. She was a little younger than I was and we had spent much of our childhood together, and many people thought the two of us should be married. I did not know whether Æthelflaed thought that a good idea. She seemed to dislike me, but she seemed to dislike most people, and yet, for all that coldness, she was adored in Mercia. Her husband, Æthelred, Lord of Mercia, was acknowledged as the ruler of the country, but it was his estranged wife people loved.

‘Gleawecestre,’ she now said to me.

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘You’ll take all the plunder, all of it. Use wagons. And take the prisoners.’

‘Yes, my lady.’ The prisoners were mostly children we had taken from Haki’s steadings during the first days of our raiding. They would be sold as slaves.

‘And you must arrive before Saint Cuthbert’s Day,’ she repeated that command. ‘You understand?’

‘Before Saint Cuthbert’s Day,’ I said dutifully.

She gave me that long, silent stare. The priests flanking her gazed at me too, their expressions as hostile as hers. ‘And you’ll take Haki,’ she went on.

‘And Haki,’ I said.

‘And you will hang him in front of my husband’s hall.’

‘Make it slow,’ one of the priests said. There are two ways of hanging a man, the quick way and the slow agonising way. ‘Yes, father,’ I said.

‘But show him to the people first,’ Æthelflaed ordered.

‘I will, my lady, of course,’ I said, then hesitated.

‘What?’ She saw my uncertainty.

‘Folk will want to know why you stayed here, my lady,’ I said.

She bridled at that, and the second priest frowned. ‘It is none of their business …’ he began.

Æthelflaed waved him to silence. ‘Many Norsemen are leaving Ireland,’ she said carefully, ‘and wanting to settle here. They must be stopped.’

‘Haki’s defeat will make them fearful,’ I suggested carefully.

She ignored my clumsy compliment. ‘Ceaster prevents them using the River Dee,’ she said, ‘but the Mærse is open. I shall build a burh on its bank.’

‘A good idea, my lady,’ I said and received a look of such scorn that I blushed.

She dismissed me with a gesture and I went back to the mutton stew. I watched her from the corner of my eye, seeing the hard jawline, the bitterness on the lips, and I wondered what in God’s name had attracted my father to her and why men revered her.

But tomorrow I would be free of her.

‘Men follow her,’ Sihtric said, ‘because other than your father she’s the only one who’s ever been willing to fight.’

We were travelling south, following a road I had come to know well in the last few years. The road followed the boundary between Mercia and Wales, a boundary that was the subject of constant argument between the Welsh kingdoms and the Mercians. The Welsh were our enemies, of course, but that enmity was confused because they were also Christian and we would never have won the battle at Teotanheale without the help of those Welsh Christians. Sometimes they fought for Christ, as they had at Teotanheale, but just as often they fought for plunder, driving cattle and slaves back to their mountain valleys. Those constant raids meant there were burhs all along the road, fortified towns where folk could take refuge when an enemy came, and from where a garrison could sally out to attack that enemy.

I rode with thirty-six men and Godric, my servant. Four of the warriors were always ahead, scouting the road margins for fear of an ambush, while the rest of us guarded Haki and the two carts loaded with plunder. We also guarded eighteen children, bound for the slave markets, though Æthelflaed insisted we display the captives before the folk of Gleawecestre first. ‘She wants to put on a show,’ Sihtric told me.

‘She does!’ Father Fraomar agreed. ‘We have let the people in Gleawecestre know that we’re defeating Christ’s enemies.’ He was one of Æthelflaed’s tame priests, still a young man, eager and enthusiastic. He nodded towards the cart ahead of us that was loaded with armour and weapons. ‘We shall sell those and the money will go towards the new burh, praise God.’

‘Praise God,’ I said dutifully.

And money, I knew, was Æthelflaed’s problem. If she was to build her new burh to guard the River Mærse she needed money and there was never enough. Her husband received the land-rents and the merchants’ taxes and the customs payments, and Lord Æthelred hated Æthelflaed. She might be loved in Mercia, but Æthelred controlled the silver, and men were loath to offend him. Even now, when Æthelred lay sick in Gleawecestre, men paid him homage. Only the bravest and wealthiest risked his anger by giving men and silver to Æthelflaed.

And Æthelred was dying. He had been struck by a spear on the back of the head at the battle of Teotanheale and the spear had pierced his helmet and broken through his skull. No one had expected him to survive, but he did, though some rumours said he was as good as dead, that he raved like a moonstruck madman, that he dribbled and twitched, and that sometimes he howled like a gutted wolf. All Mercia expected his death, and all Mercia wondered what would follow that death. That was something no one spoke of, at least not openly, though in secret they spoke of little else.

Yet to my surprise Father Fraomar spoke of it on the first night. We were travelling slowly because of the carts and prisoners and had stopped at a farmstead near Westune. This part of Mercia was newly settled, made safe because of the burh at Ceaster. The farm had belonged to a Dane, but now a one-eyed Mercian lived there with a wife, four sons, and six slaves. His house was a hovel of mud, wood and straw, his cattle shed a poor thing of leaking wattles, but all of it was surrounded by a well-made palisade of oak trunks. ‘Welsh aren’t far away,’ he explained the expensive palisade.

‘You can’t defend this with six slaves,’ I said.

‘Neighbours come here,’ he said curtly.

‘And helped build it?’

‘They did.’

We tied Haki’s ankles, made sure the bonds on his wrists were tightly knotted, then shackled him to a plough that stood abandoned beside a dung-heap. The eighteen children were crammed into the house with two men to guard them, while the rest of us found what comfort we could in the dung-spattered yard. We lit a fire. Gerbruht ate steadily, feeding his barrel-sized belly, while Redbad, another Frisian, played songs on his reed-pipes. The wistful notes filled the night air with melancholy. The sparks flew upwards. It had rained earlier, but the clouds were clearing away to show the stars. I watched some of the sparks drift onto the hovel’s roof and wondered if the thatch would smoulder, but the moss-covered straw was damp and the sparks died quickly.

‘The Nunnaminster,’ Father Fraomar said suddenly.

‘The Nunnaminster?’ I asked after a pause.

The priest had also been watching the drifting sparks fade and die on the roof. ‘The convent in Wintanceaster where the Lady Ælswith died,’ he explained, though the explanation made me no wiser.

‘King Alfred’s wife?’

‘God rest her soul,’ he said and made the sign of the cross. ‘She built the convent after the king’s death.’

‘What of it?’ I asked, still puzzled.

‘Part of the convent burned down after her death,’ he explained. ‘It was caused by sparks lodging in the roof-straw.’

‘This thatch is too wet,’ I said, nodding towards the house.

‘Of course,’ the priest was staring at the sparks settling on the thatch. ‘Some folk say the fire was the devil’s revenge,’ he paused to cross himself, ‘because the Lady Ælswith was such a pious soul and she’d escaped him.’

‘My father always told me she was a vengeful bitch,’ I ventured.

Father Fraomar frowned, then relented to offer a wry smile. ‘God rest her soul. I hear she was not an easy woman.’

‘Which one is?’ Sihtric asked.

‘The Lady Æthelflaed won’t wish it,’ Fraomar said softly.

I hesitated because the conversation was now touching on dangerous things. ‘Won’t wish what?’ I finally asked.

‘To go to a nunnery.’

‘Is that what will happen?’

‘What else?’ Fraomar asked bleakly. ‘Her husband dies, she’s a widow, and a widow with property and power. Men won’t want her marrying again. Her new husband might become too powerful. Besides …’ his voice died away.

‘Besides?’ Sihtric asked quietly.

‘The Lord Æthelred has made a will, God preserve him.’

‘And the will,’ I said slowly, ‘says his wife is to go to a nunnery?’

‘What else can she do?’ Fraomar asked. ‘It’s the custom.’

‘I can’t see her as a nun,’ I said.

‘Oh, she’s a saintly woman. A good woman,’ Fraomar spoke eagerly, then remembered she was an adulterer. ‘Not perfect, of course,’ he went on, ‘but we all fall short, do we not? We have all sinned.’

‘And her daughter?’ I asked. ‘Ælfwynn?’

‘Oh, a silly girl,’ Fraomar said without hesitation.

‘But if someone marries her …’ I suggested, but was interrupted.

‘She’s a woman! She can’t inherit her father’s power!’ Father Fraomar laughed at the very idea. ‘No, the best thing for Ælfwynn would be to marry abroad. To marry far away! Maybe a Frankish lord? Either that or join her mother in the nunnery.’

The conversation was dangerous because no one was certain what might happen when Æthelred died, and that death must surely be soon. Mercia had no king, but Æthelred, the Lord of Mercia, had almost the same powers. He would dearly have loved to be king, but he depended on the West Saxons to help him defend Mercia’s frontiers, and the West Saxons wanted no king in Mercia, or rather they wanted their own king to rule there. Yet, though Mercia and Wessex were allies, there was little love between them. Mercians had a proud past, now they were a client state, and if Edward of Wessex were to proclaim his kingship there could be unrest. No one knew what would happen, just as no one knew who they should support. Should they give allegiance to Wessex? Or to one of the Mercian ealdormen?

‘It’s just a pity that Lord Æthelred has no heir,’ Father Fraomar said.

‘No legitimate heir,’ I said, and to my surprise the priest laughed.

‘No legitimate heir,’ he agreed, then crossed himself. ‘But the Lord will provide,’ he added piously.

Next day the sky darkened with thick clouds that spread from the Welsh hills. By mid-morning it was raining and it went on raining as we made our slow way south. The roads we followed had been made by the Romans and we spent every subsequent night in the ruins of Roman forts. We saw no marauding Welsh, and the battle of Teotanheale had ensured that no Danes would harass us this far south.

The rain and the prisoners made it a slow journey, but at last we came to Gleawecestre, the capital city of Mercia. We arrived two days before the feast of Saint Cuthbert, though it was not till we were inside the city that I discovered why Æthelflaed had thought that date so important. Father Fraomar had spurred ahead to announce our arrival, and the bells of the city’s churches were ringing to greet us, and a small crowd was waiting at the gate’s arch. I unfurled our banners: my own wolf’s head, the flag of Saint Oswald, Æthelred’s white horse, and Æthelflaed’s goose. Haki’s banner was carried by Godric, my servant, who dragged it on the wet road. Our small procession was led by one cart of plunder, then came the child prisoners, then Haki who was tied by rope to the tail of Godric’s horse. The second cart brought up the rear, while my warriors rode on either side of the column. It was a petty display. After Teotanheale we had dragged over twenty wagons of plunder through the city, along with prisoners, captured horses, and a dozen enemy banners, but even my small procession gave the citizens of Gleawecestre something to celebrate and we were cheered all the way from the north gate to the entrance of Æthelred’s palace. A pair of priests hurled horse dung at Haki and the crowds took up the sport as small boys ran alongside jeering at the man.

And there, waiting for us at Æthelred’s gate, was Eardwulf, the commander of Lord Æthelred’s household troops and brother to Eadith, the woman who slept with Lord Æthelred. Eardwulf was clever, handsome, ambitious and effective. He had led Æthelred’s troops against the Welsh and done much damage, and men said he had fought well at Teotanheale. ‘His power,’ my father had told me, ‘comes from between his sister’s thighs, but don’t underestimate him. He’s dangerous.’

The dangerous Eardwulf was in a coat of mail, polished to a bright shine, and wearing a dark blue cloak edged with otter fur. He was bare-headed and his dark hair was oiled sleekly back to be tied by a brown ribbon. His sword, a heavy blade, was scabbarded in soft leather trimmed with gold. He was flanked by a pair of priests and by a half-dozen of his men, all wearing Æthelred’s symbol of the white horse. He smiled when he saw us. I saw his eyes flick towards Æthelflaed’s standard as he sauntered towards us. ‘Going to market, Lord Uhtred?’ he asked.

‘Slaves, armour, swords, spears, axes,’ I said, ‘do you want to buy?’

‘And him?’ He jerked a thumb towards Haki.

I twisted in my saddle. ‘Haki, a Norse chieftain who thought to make himself rich from Mercia.’

‘Are you selling him too?’

‘Hanging him,’ I said, ‘slowly. My lady wanted us to hang him right here.’

‘Your lady?’

‘Yours too,’ I said, knowing that would annoy him, ‘the Lady Æthelflaed.’

If he was annoyed he did not show it, instead he smiled again. ‘She has been busy,’ he said lightly, ‘and is she planning to be here as well?’

I shook my head. ‘She has work in the north.’

‘And I thought she would be here for the Witan in two days,’ he said sarcastically.

‘Witan?’ I asked.

‘It’s none of your business,’ he said tartly. ‘You are not invited.’

But the Witan, I noted, was to be held on Saint Cuthbert’s feast day and that was surely why Æthelflaed had wanted us to arrive before the great men of Mercia met in council. She was reminding them that she fought their enemies.

Eardwulf walked to Haki, looked him up and down, then turned back to me. ‘I see you fly the Lord Æthelred’s banner.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘And in the skirmish where you captured this creature,’ he nodded towards Haki, ‘did you fly it there too?’

‘Whenever my lady fights for Mercia,’ I said, ‘she flies her husband’s banner.’

‘Then the prisoners and the plunder belong to Lord Æthelred,’ Eardwulf said.

‘I’m ordered to sell them,’ I said.

‘Are you?’ He laughed. ‘Well now you have new orders. They all belong to Lord Æthelred so you will give them to me.’ He gazed at me, daring me to contradict him. I must have looked belligerent because his men half lowered their spears.

Father Fraomar had reappeared and darted to the side of my horse. ‘No fighting,’ he hissed at me.

‘My Lord Uhtred would not dream of drawing a sword against Lord Æthelred’s household warriors,’ Eardwulf said. He beckoned to his men. ‘Take it all inside,’ he ordered, indicating carts, plunder, Haki, and the slaves, ‘and do thank the Lady Æthelflaed,’ he was looking at me again, ‘for her little contribution to her husband’s treasury.’

I watched his men take the plunder and slaves through the gateway. Eardwulf smiled when it was done, then gave me a mocking smile. ‘And the Lady Æthelflaed,’ he asked, ‘has no desire to attend the Witan?’

‘She’s invited?’ I asked.

‘Of course not, she’s a woman. But she might be curious about the Witan’s decisions.’

He was trying to discover whether Æthelflaed would be in Gleawecestre. I half thought of saying I had no idea what she planned, then decided to tell the truth. ‘She won’t be here,’ I said, ‘because she’s busy. She’s making a burh on the Mærse.’

‘Oh, a burh on the Mærse!’ he repeated, then laughed.

The gates closed behind him.

‘Bastard,’ I said.

‘He had the right,’ Father Fraomar explained, ‘the Lord Æthelred is the husband of the Lady Æthelflaed, so what is hers is his.’

‘Æthelred’s an unwiped pig-sucking bastard,’ I said, staring at the closed gates.

‘He is the Lord of Mercia,’ Father Fraomar said uneasily. He was a supporter of Æthelflaed, but he sensed that her husband’s death would strip her of both power and influence.

‘Whatever the bastard is,’ Sihtric put in, ‘he won’t offer us any ale.’

‘Ale is a good idea,’ I growled.

‘The redhead at the Wheatsheaf, then?’ he asked, then grinned. ‘Unless you’re going to learn more about farming?’

I grinned back. My father had given me a farm north of Cirrenceastre, saying I should learn husbandry. ‘A man should know as much about crops, pasture and cattle as his steward knows,’ my father had growled to me, ‘otherwise the bastard will cheat you blind.’ He had been pleased at the number of days I spent at the estate, though I confess I had learned almost nothing about crops, pasture or cattle, but I had learned a great deal about the young widow to whom I had given the farm’s great hall as her home.

‘The Wheatsheaf for now,’ I said and kicked Hearding down the street. And tomorrow, I thought, I would ride to my widow.

The tavern’s sign was a great wooden carving of a wheatsheaf and I rode beneath it into the rain-soaked courtyard and let a servant take the horse. Father Fraomar, I knew, was right. The Lord Æthelred did have the legal right to take whatever belonged to his wife because nothing belonged to her that was not his, yet still Eardwulf’s action had surprised me. Æthelred and Æthelflaed had lived for years in a state of warfare, though it was war without fighting. He had the legal power in Mercia while she had the love of the Mercians. It would have been easy enough for Æthelred to order his wife’s arrest and captivity, but her brother was the King of Wessex, and Mercia only survived because the West Saxons came to its rescue whenever enemies pressed too hard. And so husband and wife hated each other, tolerated each other, and pretended that no feud existed, which was why Æthelflaed took such care to fly her husband’s banner.

I was daydreaming of taking revenge on Eardwulf as I ducked through the tavern’s door. I was dreaming of gutting him or beheading him or listening to his pleas for mercy while I held Raven-Beak at his throat. The bastard, I thought, the snivelling, pompous, grease-haired, arrogant bastard.

‘Earsling,’ a harsh voice challenged me from beside the Wheatsheaf’s hearth. ‘What rancid demon brought you here to spoil my day?’ I stared. And stared. Because the last person I had ever expected to see in Æthelred’s stronghold of Gleawecestre was staring at me. ‘Well, earsling,’ he demanded, ‘what are you doing here?’

It was my father.